Unsung Hero
by Iamdahn
Summary: With the finals of the Chuunin Exams rapidly approaching, Naruto finds himself training by himself to prepare for it. What happens when he stumbles upon someone he least expected? What could Naruto see that makes him question his ideals and goals for the future? Whatever the case, Naruto knows that the events happening are more troublesome than he could ever realize.
1. Chapter 1

"You're WHAT?"

The shrill voice of a prepubescent teen could practically be heard by the entire village. The origin of the voice stood with a look that was a combination of shock, anger, and annoyance.

The direction of said look? Aimed right at his sensei.

"Mah, mah, Naruto," He kneeled in front of the boy, deciding to throw in his famous eye-smile for good measure while trying to explain himself. "Before you ask, it has nothing to do with favoritism. Sasuke just so happens to be facing the hardest genin in the tournament first. I'm doing it for his safety, because he could be killed, whereas the worst thing that could happen to you would be loosing the fight and your ego." He paused, making his expression serious. "Because Sasuke is the last of his clan, he's in the biggest danger to this Gaara character. This guy wants to kill, not fight. Sauske's fighting for his life, here, and I'll be damned to loose a teammate."

Naruto, being as stubborn as ever and refusing to see to his sensei's reason, barked a laugh and put his hands behind his head in frustration. "How am I going to train then, sensei? I'm fighting Neji! Neji! The freakin' Hyuuga prodigy! There's no way I'm going to loose to the likes of him!"

Kakashi stepped back, anticipating the blonde's outlandish reaction to his solution. "I've assigned Ebisu-sensei as your instructor for the month duration. He's one of the best jounin out there. He has to be to guard Konohamoru, after all."

"Eh?!" Naruto wailed, eyes bugged and arms flailing dramatically around him. "Ebisu? The one that watches Konohamaru? That guy hates me!" A growl escaped his throat. How could Kakashi do this to him? Behind his head, his hands gripped into tight fists.

"He doesn't hate you, Naruto-"

"Yeah, whatever! I'll train by myself!"

Before Kakashi could refute himself, his student stormed off with a plethora of curses escaping under his breath. Sighing, Kakashi did the only thing he could do: pull out his new copy of Icha Icha and walked to the nearest bar. He needed a drink.

* * *

"Man, what the heck am I gonna do?" Naruto mumbled absentmindedly. During his aimless walk, he found himself in the clan district, where the more predominant clans resided. To his left was the Hyuuga compound, to which he gave an angry spat and continued to walk, hands groping the depths of his orange jumpsuit's pockets. It wasn't that he hated the Hyuuga clan because of Neji, no, that just wasn't who he was. If he were to start hating an entire group just because of a single person, he would hate the entire village for the abuse he received earlier in his childhood. But because of his mood, the Hyuuga were the last people he wanted to see.

Continuing on his stroll, he breezed past the Akimichi clan, which, though small, seemed to be bright with life. Stopping at the entrance of the compound, Naruto peered in (nosey much?) and noticed his classmates Choji and Shikamaru walking toward him, Choji carrying the usual bag of chips while Shikamaru had his head raised and hands in his pockets, obviously admiring the clear blue sky hovering above.

"Hey, is that Naruto?" Choji asked between the munching of chips. Shikamaru, lazily snapping himself out of his daze, looked up at the blonde at the entrance of the compound.

"Yeah, it is. Troublesome blonde. I wonder what he's up to," He pondered aloud, not at all changing his hunchback posture that famously labelled him as the lazy Nara. When they got close enough, Shikamaru nodded toward the blond who, by the looks of things, appeared to be pretty bummed out. "Oi, Naruto."

Naruto saw them coming since he peeked in, and had already waved at the duo before they approached him. "Hey, guys!" he said, masking his depression momentarily with a goofy smile. "What are you guys up to?"

Choji swallowed the pile of chewed chips in his mouth before answering. "Out to eat," he answered with a cheek-to-cheek grin. "Asuma-sensei promised me BBQ for not forfeiting in the preliminaries. Team 10 is meeting there, but I don't think Ino or Asuma would mind if you tagged along if you're hungry. Right Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru shrugged with indifference. Truth be told, he didn't mind Naruto; there had been plenty of times where the two had bonded over watching clouds and pranking their teachers when they were at the academy. "Nah, no one would care. Ino might, but she's troublesome with or without you." He paused in thought before cracking the slightest of smirks. "It might even provide some entertainment for us. Ino could use some competition for being the most loud," he teased lightly.

Naruto grinned cheekily at the invitation. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. Thanks."

The trio now made their way to meet the rest of team 10 in relative silence, which, as nice as it was to have peace and quiet, worried the two team members.

Naruto was, after all, never quiet.

"What is he doing here? And why are you all so late all the time? Sheesh, I swear-"

The four guys, at that point, simultaneously chose to ignore the woman and her lecturing. She continued to drone on, but the four – Naruto, Shikamaru, Choji, and Asuma – decided to bring up the elephant in the room. "So, Naruto, why were you wondering the clan district? No offense, or anything," Shikamaru asked, leaning back in his chair. Truth was, he was wondering why since they saw him, but he knew better not to be so direct with his questions. He had enough social sense as when to be polite and when to be frank.

Naruto frowned. "Oh. I was just kind of… walking. Clearing the head, you know?" He offered a fake smile, one that even a lecturing Ino took notice of.

"Okay, Naruto-baka, spill. What makes the most unpredictable ninja 'clear his head'? You of all people should be ecstatic; you actually won your fight yesterday. Me and Choji were lucky to be cleared out of the hospital this morning. What gives?"

Naruto sighed in defeat. And here he was trying to forget the whole ordeal. "Well, since me and Sasuke are both still in the tournament, Kakashi-sensei decided to train the teme instead of me. He says it's because he's facing a tougher opponent but I don't buy that load of bull."

Ino immediately sighed dreamily. "Oh, Sasuke. He was so dreamy in the preliminaries. He's going to be even dreamier when he wins the entire exams~."

The rest of the table facepalmed themselves. Asuma, sitting to Naruto's immediate left, patted the boy on the back. "Don't take it personally, Naruto, it really is a valid reason. The Hokage himself requested to make sure nothing bad happened to Sasuke, so it makes sense. I'd offer to show you some things if Shikamaru here wasn't in the finals. I'm working him to the bone for this month," he added with a twinkle in his eye. Shikamaru slumped with an audible groan, which instigated a chorus of laughter at his expense. Naruto laughed with them, at first just to join in, but the artificial laughter turned into genuine giddy laughing. He never really hung out with any of the Konoha 12 like this.

Naruto liked it.

Their dinner was served after an appropriate amount of waiting in which they conversed and talked like friends and comrades, some subjects making the group of shinobi roar in laughter on more than one occasion. Naruto quite liked the BBQ he was eating; it was a very nice change of pace instead of the ramen he always eats. Shikamaru, having exceptional observational skills combined with outstanding logic to accompany it, pointed that face out to the blond. "Surprised you didn't ask for a side of ramen," he joked, making Naruto rub the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Yeah, well, it smelled pretty good…" he trailed off, not really wanting to explain to them that he wasn't used to eating expensive foods.

"Maybe that's why you're so short," Ino teased, sticking her tongue out at him. Beside her, Choji let out a bark of a laugh in between bites which resulted in Ino smacking the Akimichi in the back of the head. "Manners, Cho! Jeez."

Choji mumbled an apology and grinned broadly, causing the table to chuckle at his hungriness.

After dinner, the group all said their goodbyes and headed off in their respective directions. Naruto went back to his apartment in a much better mood than earlier in the evening. Even when he was talking about his situation to them, he felt at ease letting team 10 listen and judge his dilemma. Asuma continued to see his side of the story, saying that he was getting the short end of the stick, but he also told him to look at it from Sasuke and Kakashi's point of view. Naruto, being the stubborn blond he is, refused to at first, but in the end tried to be sympathetic and see their perspective, even if he didn't like it.

Which lead him back to square one: what should he do now?

He really didn't want Ebisu to train him. The man didn't respect him in the slightest, and he had no intention to train under someone who didn't believe in him or didn't respect him as an individual. Again, that was his stubborn pride taking over his judgement, but he refused to back down on this one. It went back everything that he stood for.

So what should he do?

He had limited time to find new sensei.

Naruto yawned tiredly and walked to his bed, where he proceeded to flop down on the dirty mattress in a tired daze.

He'll figure it out tomorrow.

* * *

"'Cmon, man, lighten up. Pein didn't give us _that_ bad of a mission this time, the jerk."

Kisame grinned a toothy grin at his partner, who, by the look of things, wasn't amused at the antics of the shark. The blue-skinned man twirled his sword – if you could even call it that – and sighed. "Man, you sure are in a shitty mood today." He paused, and considered his next words carefully. "Is it because your back near Konoha? I know it may seem nostalgic, especially since you killed off your entire family, and all."

Kisame's efforts at annoying Itachi were in vain, however, with Itachi being as stoic as ever. "I am not troubled in the slightest, Kisame. I'm just surprised Pein wants to pick the Kyuubi as its first target instead of working in consecutive order."

Kisame shrugged. "Taking care of the brat before he knows how to use the most dangerous bijuu in existence seems pretty logical to me."

This time it was Itachi's turn to shrug, albeit only slightly. "Let's just do reconnaissance. Observe only. We'll take turns in separate areas. I will take the perimeter of the village and you stalk the outskirts to record any passersby who come and go. Remain hidden and try not to fillet anyone yet. We have plenty of time to carry this out."

Kisame only arched an eyebrow. "Was that the fearful Itachi Uchiha trying to crack a joke? Because I'm liking the attempt." The shark-man was only greeted with silence in return, which made him grin even wider. "I'll be getting some emotion in you, yet."

Itachi sighed inwardly. 'It could be worse. I could have Hidan.'

"Maybe we could even watch the final exams if we're still around. If my memory serves correctly, there was information on a coup d'etat that should be happening, and our ex-slithery companion Orochimaru is going to participate. That should entertaining enough to grab some popcorn and watch the show, eh buddy?" He jabbed, elbowing his partner playfully in the side.

Itachi just continued to walk. 'Maybe not.'

* * *

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

 _ **Thump-**_

"Arrgg, dammit!"

The knucklehead blond stood in a clearing outside Konoha overdramatically shaking his knuckles in blistering pain. Naruto had been performing basic kata's throughout the morning, from when the sun peaked over the Hokage Mountain to the present, a cascading ball of fire indicating the afternoon. Truth be told, he had no idea what he should be working on. Well, he did have an idea, but putting it into practice would be a whole other ballpark.

Taijutsu was his top priority. Because he was facing Neji, Naruto surmised that refining his hand-to-hand combat was the most important thing he could be doing right now, considering that Neji was a taijutsu prodigy because of his Gentle Fist style. Other than working on his taijutsu, Naruto was going to work on his endurance (thanks to the ever helpful Shadow Clone Jutsu) and perhaps search some different jutsu to help him from the Shinobi library.

Sighing, the blond decided to call it a day. After continuous strenuous training throughout the duration of the day with only food and water acting as a break, the blond was beyond exhausted. His fists, shins, and elbows were throbbing something fierce. 'Thank God for my healing abilities. Damn furball has it's uses, I guess,' he thought while laboring through the field to his apartment.

Because all the training grounds were already taken for other competitors to train, Naruto went outside the village walls to a clearing he found when he was younger. It was a quiet place about a twenty minute walk from the walls of Konoha, surrounded by a circle of trees and a trickling stream that provided a serene and calming aura that Naruto particularly enjoyed.

Because of this, Naruto didn't complain about the lack of training areas; he was perfectly content with the one he found years ago.

Naruto stood still suddenly, his hands folded behind his head as a sudden wind gently licked his sweaty and exposed skin. He closed his eyes. It felt nice, to say the least.

That was before he opened his eyes and saw emotionless, red eyes staring back at him.

And at that instant, everything became quiet, time seemed to slow.

Naruto felt his world warp and twist around him. The environment around him swayed and condensed on itself in a trip-like state while changing the colors from the normal environment to a red hue that seemed demonic. Crows flew overhead, the flapping of feathered wings and their caw's indicating as such.

But Naruto couldn't take his eyes off of the pair directly in front of him.

For the first time in his short, pathetic life, Naruto was absolutely terrified.

"Hello, Naruto," finally came the voice, overshadowing the sounds of fluttering still coming from the crows above. In front of him stood Itachi, wearing a black cloak with red clouds adorning the bottom. It covered most of his face, and from what Naruto could tell he resembled a lot of his teammate, Sasuke. However, Naruto said nothing, fear paralyzing his entire core. His brain seemed to have shut off, and because of that his body felt numb, yet it was quivering. The figure in front of him finally moved, slowly stalking the boy in circles around him.

Like a predator stalking it's prey.

"My name is Itachi Uchiha," he said after a full circle around the boy. "You're in my Tsukoyomi right now. Reality isn't what you think it is." Itachi knelt down so he was face-to-face with the blond. His face was still emotionless, which scared Naruto even further. "This is my reality. You will endure what will seem like 72 hours of it, but is actually only a few moments in real time."

Naruto gulped audibly. His heart was fluttering in his chest, beating at a million beats per minute. "A-aren't you Sasuke's brother?" he gasped out, finally finding his voice.

Itachi blinked and merely nodded in response. "Yes. I am."

"Y-you massacred your entire family!" Naruto croaked, clenching his shirt to still his quivering hand. If he was going to be tortured, he was going to be tortured with his dignity in somewhat tact. "H-how could you do that to them? To Sasuke?"

Again, Itachi only blinked. Moments passed and not a word was spoken between the two of them, only the sounds of crows continuing to flutter overhead reached Naruto's ears. That, and the sound of his heart beating out of his chest. "You wish to know how I could do that, Naruto?"

Said blond only blinked, before letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He nodded wordlessly.

Itachi walked forward abruptly, grabbing the boy's chin with his black-fingernail-painted hand, holding his face so that his red, mesmerizing eyes were directly in front of the blond's own blue orbs. "Then I shall show you."

From within his current reality, the world began to swirl and distort once again. It made Naruto want to hurl. He closed his eyes tightly now, the effects of the Uchiha's genjutsu making the blond overly queasy. When he opened them, however, he was in a very familiar place.

The Hokage's office.

He was standing in front of the old man, looking down at his sitting form, pipe in hand and hat on lap. "Itachi," he said with authority, "Are you sure you wish to go through with this?"

Naruto felt his mouth moving without him controlling anything, and wanted to recoil from surprise when he heard not his voice, but Itachi's, responding to him. "Yes, sir. I believe there is no other option than what Lord Danzo suggested. I have tried to talk peace to my father but he and the other authority figures are not having any of it. I'm afraid their hatred and yearn for power are clouding their reasoning. Their coup will be happening tomorrow at dawn. I've tried everything." Naruto felt himself – no, Itachi – frown. He felt the sadness within his heart – Itachi's sadness – overwhelm him and almost felt a tear escape his pores. "I must kill them. My love for my village's safety is much more than my love for my clan's greed."

The Hokage frowned. He was obviously very conflicted with this decision. He never wanted to have it come to this; murdering an entire clan because they refused to listen to his reasoning of peace.

To be honest, Naruto couldn't even fathom making such a decision. Is this the type of responsibility leaders have to decide? Having to kill an entire clan because of their insubordination and recklessness that endangered the entire village, or allowing such a force to take control and make Konoha a dictatorship nobody wanted? He could tell the old man was really regretting his position in power right about now; having to make such a decision was taxing and he could tell the moral dilemma mulling around through his brain.

However, it was as Itachi stated; their love for their clan and power blinded them. They didn't care about the village, they only had power in their sights. Sarutobi looked up, his expression still saddened and torn at this crossroads, but also fierce and filled with resolve. He was the protector of this village. What needed to be done, will be done, regardless of the consequences. The Hokage will always and forever put the lives of the many first over the lives of the few.

Even if some of them were innocent to begin with.

So with this dilemma rolling around his brain, he sighed, defeated, and nodded. "Do you wish to proceed with this mission, Itachi? You know the consequences of such actions. I can assign a different ANBU operative to go through with this if you cannot. I understand if it's difficulty and wouldn't be asking you this unless there was no other choice."

Naruto/Itachi nodded once. "I understand, and I will be the one to do it. I understand I will be declared a S-rank Nukenin. I will be known as the person who killed his entire family, and will be labeled as a traitor and a monster. But for the sake of peace, I will do this with a guilty-free conscience."

The Hokage nodded in return. "Very well, Itachi. You will be seen as a monster, but in reality, you are a savior of this village. There's no way I can repay you for what you're about to do."

Naruto/Itachi nodded once. "Thank you, Lord Hokage. It has been a pleasure. I will have the mission carried out tonight after curfew." He paused. "I promise to keep in touch. Konoha's safety… will always be my top priority." And with that, Naruto/Itachi flickered out of the office.

Once again, Naruto's reality distorted into a new scenario, where Itachi/Naruto was standing on top of a lightpole, branding a blood-covered sword and looking down at a young Uchiha who kneeled on the pavement outside their home, openly sobbing.

There were two things that caught Naruto off guard at this picture.

The first: realizing this was the moment that Sasuke realized that his whole clan was slaughtered, not by just anyone, but by his brother. He saw the young Sasuke's face distort pitifully as he sobbed and sobbed, staring up at him as he stood on the light pole looking down.

This was a personal moment Naruto didn't think he should be witnessing.

The second: feeling what Itachi was experiencing at this very moment. Inside, his heart was in turmoil. His mission was going successfully; he even managed to kill his parents without backing down, and he knew that was one of the parts he would have trouble doing. But, like everyone else he murdered this night, he looked them in the eyes before he ended their life.

But, now, facing his brother whom he loved more than anyone in the world, he couldn't dream of killing him. He couldn't bare slitting his throat and watching his younger brother die. What was worse, he knew he was going to let him live. And because of this, he knew he had traumatized his precious person to the state that wasn't healthy.

Naruto screamed in his head to stop, to end this. "I've seen enough!" He yelled, squeezing his obviously watery eyes shut with hopes to end this horrific nightmare.

When he opened his eyes, he was back in the first red-hue'd reality with Itachi still holding his face. When the Uchiha let go, Naruto slumped forward and panted, letting his eyes drain like waterfalls as he processed what the Uchiha had just shown him.

"I-It was an order," Naruto finally hiccupped, his voice deeming it almost unbelievable. But there the proof was, in Itachi's eyes.

Itachi barely moved, only looking down at the junchuriki below him. He shut his eyes tight for a moment before opening them again. "Yes."

Naruto looked up at him with newfound respect in his eyes. "Sasuke… he has no idea… he's hell-bent on killing you," he stated unbelievably. "I-I'm sorry." He stood, now, after wiping the tears off on his sleeve. "But why did you bring me here?"

Itachi allowed a brief pause before replying, deciding it best to be frank with the boy. "I am here to capture you and your Kyuubi, Naruto." Naruto stared back up at him in a fearful shock, but Itachi continued before he could blurt out an exclamation. "I am in a S-rank group known as the Akatsuki. We are ordered to collect all jinchuuriki and take their bijuu for extraction of power." Itachi once again circled around the boy, who stood on unbalanced and shaky knees with eyes still wet, slowly and deliberately sizing the blond up and down. "But, like when I faced my brother that day, I cannot bring myself to do such a thing."

Naruto sighed in relief, letting out another breath that he didn't know he was holding. That was good, at least.

"My partner, though, may not be so kind. Kisame Hoshigaki is his name. He is approximately twenty miles patrolling your village doing reconnaissance. He is a good friend, one that knows what you do now, but is loyal to this organization. Be wary of sharks." Naruto frowned at the cryptic warning, but nodded anyway. "There is one thing I'd like to talk to you about, Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto blinked, waiting for Itachi to continue.

"How… is my brother?"

The blond sighed and put his arms behind his head, finally regaining his composure (at least some of it; his arms were still visibly shaking and his form was still tense as ever). "He's… broody. Mad. He wants revenge on you, Itachi, he wants to kill you. That's his one and only goal." Naruto closed his eyes tightly. "I'm sorry, man, this is so messed up…" he mumbled. "Everything we know about this massacre was a lie. Everything. You should be branded as a hero, not a villain."

Itachi merely shrugged. "I appreciate the sympathy, but I don't need it. I know what I did. I can live with the consequences and die satisfied, knowing I did my part."

Naruto opened his eyes, finally, his blue orbs now donning a steely resolve as he sought and stared into Itachi's. "I wish I had your courage. I once thought the Yondamie Hokage was my hero, no, everyone knows what he did. The true hero's are the ones that work underneath the spotlight, where they don't get the credit they deserve. The unsung hero. You're my new hero, Itachi. Believe it."

Itachi smiled slightly, the first sign Naruto noticed of emotion that the Uchiha showed. "Thank you, Naruto."

Naruto shook his head. "No, I should be thanking you. Actually, since you're here…" Naruto showed his cheeky grin, allowing himself to become more comfortable with the man in front of him, something he didn't expect to happen so quickly. "Would you be able to give some tips? On getting better as a shinobi? I don't have a sensei for the finals of the exams, since my sensei is training your brother…"

An eyebrow quirked up in surprise from the older man. "You're asking me for help?"

A chuckle came from the blond, accompanied by his signature ear-to-ear grin. "You bet! You're an amazing shinobi, plus your experienced. And, since we have loads of time to spare in this genjustsu, time, thing-" he waved his hands in a dismissing manner. "Whatever this is. You can show me kata's, or anything really." With pleading eyes, Naruto looked up at the stoic man in anticipation. "Please?"

The Uchiha contemplated for a moment. This child was being targeted by his organization. With the ease he was trapped in his genjutsu, as well as his physical stature, described Naruto as an average level genin whom, in his honest opinion, was lucky enough to make it to the finals based on his skill set. With the inevitable invasion coming along – according to Kisame's sources – the boy would need to strengthen his skills to adapt and survive his troublesome ordeals.

After a few moments, Itachi shrugged. "What would you like to know?"

Naruto beamed up at the man quickly, grinning his signature fox-like grin before exclaiming his joy at the prospect of having the infamous Itachi Uchiha as his sensei. "Awesome! Uhm," he ran his hand through his golden locks while he thought momentarily, "I have no idea."

Itachi sighed, and nodded his head toward the blond. "Assume your stance, I'll gauge your strength through a small spar. Do you need a weapon to use? Because this is my reality, I can spawn whatever I please."

Naruto remained thoughtful for a moment. "I always thought the Swordsman of the Mist were really cool and strong, how they use their sword and techniques to battle in tandem together…" Naruto shook his head and smiled brightly. "I don't know how to use a sword, though, so no thanks. I'll just spar like I usually do."

Taking a mental note of the wantings of the blond, Itachi nodded and assumed a lax stance. "Alright, come at me with everything you have so I can accurately assess your skills."

"Alright! Let's go!"

* * *

Naruto gasped, his blue eyes darting around his darkened surroundings before he stumbled forward, allowing himself to catch his bareings. "J-jesus, it's like waking up from a nightmare," Naruto mumbled, realizing that Itachi was still standing in front of him. It looked like Itachi was true to his word; 72 hours in his genjutsu was equivalent to a few seconds in the real world. Everything was as he left it; it was darkening outside, and the breeze was continuing to caress his still sweaty skin.

The Uchiha nodded toward the blond. "I ended the genjutsu immediately after our fight. I cannot help you with your mental state being weary and your physical state being equally as tired. Had we spent the whole time in my genjutsu, you would surely be in the hospital, and dead if it weren't for the Kyuubi." Naruto frowned, but nodded in understanding. A trip to the hospital would hinder his time to strengthen up.

"Your skills are adequate, at best. The shadow clone technique is an amazing training method, so we will utilize this to help your training. Your taijutsu is abysmal and lacking everything that makes taijutsu effective, but you make up for the lack of a form with your unpredictability. I will try and utilize that into an effective style that you can easily learn. Other than that, your justu repertoire is severely lacking. In fact, it's basically non-existent other than your shadow clones."

The whole time Itachi was talking, Naruto was fuming on the inside. He so wanted to burst out and say that he was wrong, but after the ass kicking he got inside of the man's genjustu, he had no proof to back up his defense. Instead, he allowed the Uchiha to continue.

"You mentioned your interest in learning the art of kenjutsu along side with ninjutsu, much like the Sevem Swordsman of the Mist?" Naruto nodded eagerly. The Seven Swordsman – the only one he know being Zabuza – was fierce and one hell of a shinobi. Plus, it was cool as hell. "I will try." Again, his promise was cryptic, but Naruto could live with that. He was having an amazing shinobi as his sensei, after all. "Come back here tomorrow, at dawn. I will help you further."

Before Naruto could thank the man, or even exclaim an affirm, Itachi spontaneously exploded in a flock of crows, leaving Naruto alone in the woods. "Fuck yeah!" Naruto exclaimed loudly, extremely happy with how everything was playing out. With an excited click of his heels, Naruto bound back to his apartment in an ecstatic rush.

Today had been interesting.

Tomorrow was going to be even weirder.

* * *

Naruto stood at the training spot he was at yesterday after his usual morning routine: shit, shower, shave (hey, he was practicing), and eat. He wasn't sure exactly what time he had to meet his newfound sensei, as the generic 'dawn' could mean at any time during the sunrise. Impatient as ever, Naruto paced in circles, awaiting the vigorous training he was expecting today.

"So you're the twerp Itachi was talking about, eh?" Naruto spun around at the foreign voice, only to tense and back away slowly at the sight in front of him.

Walking menacingly toward him, Naruto gulped at the appearance of the man. When Itachi said to be careful of sharks, he had seriously fucking meant it. Kisame – assuming this was the man Itachi was warning him about yesterday – was blue all over his body, with fish-like scales protruding out of his neck and shark-like teeth baring at him in a vicious looking grin. Behind his shoulder slung a giant sword – at least that's what Naruto assumed. It was wrapped up in cloth, but the aura coming from the weapon made the blond even more wary about it than the man. He wore the same cloak Itachi wore, declaring his allegiance to the faction they were both sharing: Akatsuki.

"Relax, squirt, I promised Itachi I wouldn't hurt you," he paused mid-step, grinning wider before adding, "much." Naruto gulped and watched him approach him. "So you're the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, huh? Not much of a threat, if you ask me. I've seen other jinchuuriki half your age already destroying villages and kicking ass and taking names, but not you." Kisame shrugged. "Whatever. No skin off my nose."

Naruto pointed his finger and growled. "What the hell are you doing here? Itachi said he'd help me train! And I'm supposed to be avoiding you!" There's really no running from him at this point; he was going down loud and proud, consequences be damned.

The shark-man laughed loudly. "He talked me into it. I hate the fucking Akatsuki, anyway," he spat at the ground. "Only reason why I'm blindly following orders is 'cause it gets me into crazy awesome fights that I wouldn't otherwise get in." He glared at the blond. "Only reason I'm helping Itachi out and not capturing you here and now is because I know his past and he knows mine; we were planning on doing some shit soon to get us away from this organization, but it's been hard since there's been newer members and more assignments." He paused, tapping the sword lightly on his own shoulder. "That, and training a squirt like you sounds like a blast. It's not every day a kid let's me torture him on his own free will."

Naruto blinked twice. "I'm not letting you torture me, you damn shark!"

"You're letting me help you." He shrugged. "It's basically the same thing." A grin appeared on his features once more. "Just remember, I'm not training you for free. You owe us – me and stoic-man, anyway."

The blond paled at the declaration. What did he mean that he owed them? The thought was severely frightening. However, he watched as Kisame pulled something from his pocket and threw it at the blond. "Take it, brat."

Mumbling under his breath, Naruto caught the item. It was a scroll. Unraveling it, Naruto pulsed some chakra in it to reveal the item inside.

He gasped audibly.

Inside was a giant cleaver, easily the dwarfing the size of the genin. It resembled that of the sword Zabuza used…

Wait. Hole near the tip, a head-space curve near the base…

This was the same sword!

"How the hell do you have Zabuza's sword?!" Naruto yelled, enraged.

Kisame shrugged. "Found it at his gravesite. Didn't even know the fucker was dead. Was a pity, too, he was gonna help the rebellion out. Mist has gone to shit recently, don'tcha know?"

Naruto growled angrily. "Yeah, he died protecting us back in Wave Country, fighting some quadrillionaire named Gato. We left it there on purpose."

Kisame laughed audibly. "You don't do that to a swordsman's sword, idiot. These things are meant to be passed down. What's the point of having the seven swordsman if there are only six swords to use?"

Naruto only frowned but said nothing. Who was he to argue their customs? He was getting a sword out of the deal. "Oi, wait a minute, how the hell am I supposed to wield this thing? It's bigger than I am!" He gestured to the hunk of metal laying on the scroll in front of him.

Kisame sighed, smacking his face angrily. "Pick it up first, dumbass. This sword is sentient; it has special properties that makes it a legendary sword. They're legendary for a reason, idiot. If it's meant for you, it'll be light. If not, it'll be heavy. It was heavy for Zabuza, but he can lift a fucking horse without breaking a sweat, so he used it anyway. Pick the damn thing up already."

Naruto scowled, obviously annoyed at the way the swordsman was treating him, but it could be worse, he surmised. Grabbing the handle of the sword, he pulled with all of his strength…

…and fell backward on his ass with the amount of momentum in his lift. In his hand was the sword, no heavier than a regular katana, if that. It was odd, though; he felt his chakra being absorbed – no, absorbed was the wrong word for it. It was more like being fused into the sword, an extension of his body being fed chakra that he had (and because of the large chakra capacity within him, it was a fucking lot). The sword glowed a light blue on the edges, but keeping the black and steel look in the middle. It was an odd sight; on the outside, it looked as though a foreign pattern of chakra was randomly weaving down the edges of the steeled blade while keeping away from the middle, giving the outer edge of the sword a Aztecian sort of look. Naruto looked up warily, hearing an impressed whistle coming from the shark man.

'Shit, Itachi was right about this, the kid has massive potential. He may prove to be useful yet,' he grinned. "Damn kid, this thing was practically made for you and your chakra. Now I get to put you through hell, and believe me, if you aren't ready to use this by the end of the month, I'm not letting you keep it, even if the sword chose you."

The blond grinned sheepishly at the praise, or what he thought was praise. "Uh, Sharkman, what am I supposed to say when people notice me using a legendary sword?" He emphasized his question by swinging the thing horizontally in front of him, something he found to be easier than he thought.

A tic formed on Kisame's forehead at the brat's nickname for him. "I have a name, shithead. And hell if I know, figure it out yourself. I'm just teaching you how to use it."

Shrugging, Naruto nodded. He'd figure it out when the time comes.

Kisame grinned, taking out his own sword and brandishing It in front of him. "Alright, brat, time to get serious."

* * *

Everything will be explained next chapter, regarding Kisame's and Itachi's plans for Naruto and why they chose to train him they way they are.

Let me know what needs to be worked on, and if this interests anyone. Please please please please, review. It lets me know that people like this idea, if anyone does.


	2. Chapter 2

_Absolute black._

 _That's all it was; a vast nothingness that echoed throughout the room in a never-ending trickle of the white noise that is silence._

 _A figure suddenly flickered into life within the darkness. It was a hazy and transparent silhouette that glowed within itself, yet not shining any object around it. It dawned a black cloak, illustrated with a red cloud on the back. Shining from the darkness were piercing red eyes, half shut in a sort of glare. If anyone were to be watching, one could resemble the figure to that of a ghost._

 _As quickly as the first figure came, another followed suite, wearing the same cloak as the first illusion-man. However, unlike the first figure whose presence was calm and collected, this one's was powerful and deadly. His eyes, scrunched in a scowl, were purple in color, with rings cascading inward toward the center. "Itachi," its commanding baritone voice rang out at last, filling the space of silence that suffocated the air around them, "I have a mission for you and your partner of choice to carry out."_

 _No reaction came from Itachi. The man, instead, continued on, almost like he was expecting the man to be as stoic and emotionless as he was. "According to our sources, Konoha's jinchuuriki finally realized his bijuu, the Nine-Tailed Fox." A pause. "This is bad news. Because it is the strongest of the bijuu, it will be harder to control for the boy who hosts the demon. But when the boy inevitably harnesses the beast inside him, he will pose as a big problem for us if we save him for last, like our plan prior."_

 _Itachi remained silent for a moment longer. "What do you propose then, Lord Pein?"_

 _Pein took a moment to collect his thoughts. "We target him first, while he is still a relatively easy capture. If my sources are correct, then Orochimaru will be planning an attack on your former village in about two months time, during their final examination phase. Since you know Konoha and the surrounding area, you will be the one to capture him, along with a partner of your choosing." The purple-eyed man stared the sharingan user square in the eyes, showing no indication of fear, almost like he was challenging him._

" _That is, unless, you feel that your past relationship with Konoha will influence the mission's success."_

 _Itachi remained emotionless throughout his leaders challenge, appearing almost bored at his jab. "No, Lord Pein. There will be no complications. I will carry out this mission with my usual partner."_

" _Good." As quickly as he came, the meeting was adjourned, and Pein feinted out of sight. Itachi, standing by himself, allowed a brief moment to let out an escaping murmer before allowing himself to vanish as well._

" _I guess it's time, then."_

* * *

Naruto awoke, limbs sore and muscles on fire. Never in his life had he trained so intensely before, and he mentally cursed at Kakashi-sensei for not properly training his team like Itachi and Kisame were now.

Speaking of the two teachers, Naruto's brow furrowed. He knew how bad of people their reputation says them to be. Itachi Uchiha was one of the most infamous people in Konoha, probably even more so than Orochimaru, solely based on the fact that he single-handedly massacred the entire Uchiha clan. The blond could understand where all the hate came from; just until a few days ago, he had thought the same thing. He could only imagine what everyone would think of him if someone ever found out who was teaching him.

Kisame was another story entirely. Though Naruto trusted Itachi, Kisame was a different story. From what Naruto knew about the shark-man, he was a power-hungry man who actively embraced harsh battles and welcomed any newcomer to engage and entertain him in battle. Itachi had told Naruto that he trusted Kisame with his life, something that Naruto took in high regard. If Itachi could trust Sharky (as Naruto ever so dearly nicknamed him) then Naruto could as well, though he was still hesitant about it.

Their training, especially when they pushed him at the same time because of his ever so convenient Shadow Clone Jutsu, was nothing like Naruto ever experienced before, even after a week of it Naruto was having a tough time. Mentally, Naruto was fried; having his shadow clones training with Kisame and the real Naruto being in Itachi's genjutsu, they utilized all of the time they had to touch up Naruto's skills. After Kisame showed Naruto the basic kata's for sword-wielding, Itachi made a clone of Kisame get caught in his Tsukuyomi as well to ensure Naruto's 72 hours in the genjutsu was used to its fullest, especially since Naruto has been using the 72 hour genjutsu several times each day he trained. Naruto insisted to use his technique more than a few times a day, but Itachi warned that too much strain on Naruto's mind (which was underdeveloped to begin with, according to Kisame, much to the blond's chagrin) would end up killing him or overloading his brain.

The fighting within the genjutsu was intense, however; whenever Naruto got a kata wrong, or created a misstep in his footwork, or anything negative at all actually, Itachi or Kisame (usually the latter) would make it a point to stab the blond somewhere extremely painful. Because it's a genjutsu, this did absolutely nothing to Naruto's body other than give him a lot of fucking pain, which coerced the blond to do it right the next time. As brutal and fucked up as the training method was, it definitely showed results, considering Naruto did everything in his power _not_ to be stabbed.

The original Kisame, with the fifty shadow clones Naruto leaves behind, individually coached them in different areas while the genjutsu was going on. For half of them, Kisame had Naruto start learning the Hidden Mist Technique, something that someone with the Kubikiribocho (the name of Zabuza's sword, Naruto learned quickly) should know like the back of his hand, considering the technique and sword are a perfect match when used in tandem with each other.

The other half, for now, were spent working on getting their chakra control up to snuff. Sure, Naruto can tree walk and water walk, but Naruto was way behind when it came to his level of chakra control, at least that's what Kisame determined. Naruto continued to protest this idea, but he was told it needed to be trained before he could learn any more techniques, considering the only jutsus the shark knew were higher-level.

Today, though, they gave him the day off to recuperate and recover. Mentally, Naruto was exhausted; him being put in a genjutsu put him in a never-ending headache, especially at first when Itachi repeatedly stabbed him for sloppy performances of his cleaver. Even though Naruto made sure to dispel his clones at different times to ensure a lessened headache, it still managed to evolve his headache into a migraine.

After his morning routine (even though it was around noon time, now) Naruto best decided to head over to the shinobi store for much needed equipment, namely different clothes (at the behest of Kisame who almost refused to train him if he continued to wear his 'orange monstrosity') and cloth, to cover the fact that his giant cleaver of a sword was a legendary one. Naruto came up with the idea once he started sparring with Kisame and his own wrapped sword.

Mumbling incoherently about his love for orange and his infamous jumpsuit of his, Naruto finally wandered into the shinobi store after some hesitation.

Inside was huge; racks upon racks of shinobi clothing lines the rails, where various customers were milling about, checking out the wares. On the walls were weapons of every kind, ranging from katanas to tanto's, all in various sizes and prices. Near the counter, however, were the necessities, including shuriken and kunai of various metals, some more expensive than the other. Behind the desk, though, Naruto recognized the girl flipping through a magazine looking very, very bored. Upon his entering, the girl glanced up momentarily before returning back to her magazine. As if doing a double take, she looked back up immediately and smiled at him.

"Hello, Naruto!" Said boy smiled up at her. He was way to exhausted to be his trademark goofy self, but walked up to the counter to mingle with her anyway.

"Hey, Tenten, right?" he inquired, almost forgetting the girls name. He never really talked to her before, other than the few words shared at the behest of scoffs of Neji and the exclamations of Lee.

"Yeah," she grinned sheepishly. "What brings you here?"

"I'm…" he frowned, allowing his gaze to stray to the floor, as if embarassed, "looking for better clothes."

A surprise blink was his response, before he heard her laugh. At first he thought it was a mocking laugh and he was going to get angry, but when he looked up to yell at her defensively, her look showed more bemusement than anything. "Finally getting rid of that jumpsuit, eh? Well then, what are you looking for?"

"There's nothing wrong with the jumpsuit!" Naruto huffed, arms crossed. He hadn't thought this far as to what he exactly wanted, though. "Uhh, I'm not sure what I want, honestly, I'm no good at this fashion stuff," he admitted shyly, rubbing the back of his head with a grin.

Tenten only smiled in return. "Well, lucky for you, I'm pretty good at dressing people up. Any colors your looking for?"

Turning white, Naruto thought back to what Kisame said when he was threatening him. 'Get proper shinobi clothes, brat. No bright colors, no flashy cloaks, just the basics. I swear to Kami if you get something with orange in it, I'm filleting you in Itachi's genjutsu for 72 hours.'

"Anything."

Nodding, Tenten pranced from behind the counter and in the direction of the plethora of clothes hanging on racks at the back of the store like a professional. "Okay, this," she picked up the article of clothing in question, which happened to be a form-fitting long sleeve black shirt, "and this," she picked up standard ANBU-grade black pants, "and… hm," she stopped, now pondering her next choice. After sizing up Naruto from head to toe (something that made him severely uncomfortable), she nodded to herself and picked a dark blue vest and ANBU-style shoes to complete the attire. "Try these on," she finished, thrusting the outfit to Naruto who took the clothing much to his chagrin.

After trying on the clothes, and Tenten growing impatient, she groaned audibly and yelled at him through the changing room door. "Come on, Naruto, let me see already!"

"Alright, alright, Jeez," he shot back quickly before stepping out.

Her reaction made him blush. She gasped, mouth agape and eyes darting to every feature of his attire before smiling and clapping her hands in excitement. "Looking good, Naruto! Man, do I do a good job or what?"

He mumbled something in response before walking over to a mirror and examining himself. Sure, he didn't look half bad, but it was no orange jumpsuit. "Yeah, yeah, I'll take 10 pair of these then, if I look decent."

She snorted at his lackadaisical response. "Decent doesn't describe it. You actually look like a proper shinobi now." Back behind the counter, she rang up 10 pair of the same clothes he wore now. "That'll be-"

"Do you have sword cloth as well?" he inquired, cutting her off.

"Sword cloth?" She blinked. "Since when do you use a sword? Trying to edge something into the fight against Neji, eh?" Not giving him time to explain himself, she grinned. "Not a bad plan, if you're in any way decent with it. Only one month to train is cutting it close. Yeah, we have sword cloth, but there are different kinds. The generic kind doesn't last long, but if you get the good brand, it'll last forever. That cloth can take some of your chakra into it, so it's nearly indestructible and won't fray, like, at all, and stays pretty sharp through the cloth, but it's pretty expensi-"

"I'll take two rolls of the best kind," he grinned.

Frowning at him, she rang that up as well and produced said cloth from underneath the counter. "Why do you need two? Don't tell me you're trying to use two swords, because trust me Naruto, that's a dumb decision."

Naruto shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. Man, did he hate shopping, especially when Tenten was heckling him so much. "It's not for two swords, jeez." He saw her about to open her mouth, but he chimed in before she could say a word. "It's a big sword."

Again, not really buying his explanation, nodded anyway and rang up the total once more. "Anything else, then?" After seeing the boy shake his head, she told him the total and he produced the correct amount from his frog wallet, which went from bulging to deflated in a matter of a few seconds.

"All my money…" he cried aloud to himself, shaking the frog upside down in an overdramatic fashion. With a sweatdrop, Tenten bagged his stuff and handed it over to him, which totaled up to four big bags worth of clothes and sword tape.

"Since you're practicing with a sword, Naruto, how about we give a little spar? I am a weapons mistress, after all, and maybe I can give you a few pointers, if you need help."

After looking at her expectant face, Naruto, despite his exhausted state (combined with not being able to resist a challenge) grinned from ear to ear and nodded eagerly. "Hell yeah! When do you get off work?"

After checking her non-existent watch, she unhooked her apron and ditched it on the counter. "About now. My dad's in the back, so I'll just let him know that I'm leaving."

While she was in the back, Naruto produced a clone to take his bags to his apartment, and ordered him to put the cloth on his Kubikiribocho and take it to training ground seven. He really didn't want Tenten to question his sword or the oddities that came with it. Receiving a nod from himself, he saw his clone bolt out the door, bags in hand, and turned back to Tenten who was now walking toward the door. "Let's go, slowpoke."

"Eh?! Who are you calling slowpoke, slowpoke?" Naruto palmed his face, hard. Yeah, great comeback, dude.

* * *

Once Naruto's clone came back with his Kubikiribocho wrapped up, the two stood across training ground seven, his cleaver in hand and her own katana in her own.

At first, she was awestruck at the size of his weapon of choice. Truth be told, she wasn't expecting the weapon he chose to be bigger than him, and was even more surprised at how easy he held it, almost like it was weightless. At more than one instance she tried to sneak a peek at his muscles to see how strong he was to hold such a monster up constantly, but gave up once she couldn't get a chance. After the initial shock, she was very incredulous at his huge sword, teasing him with the classic 'you compensating for something there, Naruto~?' to which he fumed and fumbled a weak rebuttal. Damn women. Shikamaru was right; women are troublesome.

She stood, now, wearing her fingerless gloves and sword nestled expertly in her hands, and her stance was poised to strike at any given moment. "You ready, Naruto?"

"You bet!" He grinned, assuming his own stance.

"Rules are the usual. This is just a friendly spar, so nothing that can seriously hurt the other, blah blah blah. Ready, go!"

Simultaneously, the duo jumped forward at each other.

Immediately, Tenten was amazed at the speed Naruto could move that sword around.

With each strike they parried, trading blocks and jabs as the other opponent tried to land a body shot on the other. Tenten's movements were lithe and agile, as suspected from a weapons mistress who was a prodigy at her art, while Naruto's were a little more amateur, yet was quick and precise that packed quite a bit of power. Tenten ducked under the swing of the big sword before sweeping her legs out and jabbing at the boy at the same time, making him roll to the side in order to dodge both simultaneous attacks.

Readying himself once more, Naruto grinned. "Wow, Tenten, that was a good move! I almost didn't dodge that sweepkick. You'd have me pinned for sure!"

She beamed at his praise, but took to her own stance as well. "And you're a lot quicker than I thought you would be. My arms are getting tired for parrying that huge thing over and over again. You definitely have a lot of endurance. That's good for a swordsman."

Without warning she dashed forward again, this time avoiding having to parry by moving her body in more fluid motions, twisting her limbs this way and that to avoid being hit by a swinging Naruto. Flustered, Naruto growled at her through his teeth before jumping back to avoid a slash that would have cut his already whiskered face. 'Close one,' he thought with a frown. Obviously, like Kisame, she was a lot more skilled in swordplay than he himself was.

So, pulling a classic Naruto move, he improvised.

Had it been anyone but Tenten, he would have tried out his new Hidden Mist Jutsu, but because she was Neji's partner and didn't want her to spill all of his secrets, he decided to use his classic Shadow Clone Jutsu in its stead. With one hand performing the technique, Naruto concentrated all of his chakra to his right hand seal, his sword still in his left.

All that chakra control exercises Kisame beat into him (literally, beat into him) it took him several moments to find the balance before he exclaimed his technique, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Tenten's eyes were wide in shock. "W-what? A one handed seal?" She gasped as two Naruto's suddenly swarmed her in both directions, and with great difficulty parried and dodged each attack. After receiving a nick on her arm, she jumped backward and raised her sword in defeat. "I yield!"

Naruto dispelled his clone with a sweaty grin. His clothes were glued to his body, and as much as he'd hate to admit, he found himself moving a lot better in these tight-fit clothes than he did in his baggy jumpsuit. Walking up to Tenten with his sword slung behind his back, Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his head with a small giggle escaping his lips. "Looks like I cheated a bit, heh heh."

Tenten shook her head, obviously still in a daze. "I never said no ninjutsu," she said in his defense. Regaining her shocked attitude, she gently shoved the blond before crossing her arms. "But what the heck was that, huh? One handed seals? Since when could you do that?"

Naruto shrugged. "I've been practicing my chakra control. I can only do one clone so far 'cause doing it one handed is super hard, and it takes me a few seconds to actually do it, so it's not very useful yet."

"Not useful?!" She exclaimed loudly, stomping her foot. "Some jonin can't even do that yet! That's seriously impressive stuff, Naruto."

Glowing at her praise, he thanked her profusely before shaking her hand in good sportsmanship. "So, uh, can you not tell your teammate Neji about what I'm training? Kinda want it to be a secret until we, y'know, fight in the finals."

With a knowing smile, Tenten made a cross-like motion across her chest. "Cross my heart, you got it. I'm honestly excited to see this fight. And here I was ready for the Uchiha fight instead of yours."

Naruto pouted at this information. "Gee, thanks."

Earning a slap on the back from the weapons mistress, she grinned and walked away from him. "Anytime."

Naruto ended up walking back to his apartment, mumbling something under his breath about women being annoying.

* * *

"Alright, your clones mastered the kunai-tip chakra exercise, so we're gonna start on the one-handed Hidden Mist Jutsu." Kisame shed his cloak, choosing to stay in the safety that is shade. Being part shark, it made sense that he wanted to stay a little cool, considering the lack of lakes or ponds in Konoha. "Your clones are making this training thing a whole lot easier, brat, I'll give you that. How is he doing in his sword technique, Itachi? Is he improving? 'Cause if he's not I swear I'll gut the motherfucker." Because of Itachi and his sharingan, he could focus more on Naruto's movements and judge them accordingly. Needless to say, Naruto hated this fact, considering he still receiving the pain of a stab when he messed up in any way.

Hearing his threat made Naruto sweat a bit. He saw Itachi shrug, which quelled the butterflies that were swarming in his stomach. "He's doing much better. I'd say he'd rival an early Suigetsu when he was high-Chuunin level in swordplay. The clones are definitely making his training a lot easier, combined with my Tsukuyomi it is a very potent combination indeed. In these past three weeks he's gone from knowing almost nothing to extremely potent in Swordplay and ninjutsu, especially when used together."

Apparently satisfied with this, Kisame nodded. "Good. At least I'm not wasting time training this runt for no reason."

Upon hearing this, Naruto perked up. "What do you mean, your training me for a reason?"

Kisame glanced at Itachi for a brief moment, something that Naruto made note of, and shrugged. "I ain't doing this for free, shithead. You'd be a moron if you'd think being trained under an ex Swordsman of the Mist would cost nothing."

Naruto frowned in response. "Why are you training me, then?"

"Because, you'll be helpful soon."

It was Itachi to speak up this time, intervening the every day occurrence that is bickering between the blond and the shark. "H-helpful with what?" After no one answered him, he decided to ask again, only to put a little more oomph in it this time. "What gives, huh? What am I going to be helpful with?"

"It's only logical that you, as a jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, will develop skills that will make you a shinobi of insane skill once you have matured your knowledge and chakra network," he explained without skipping a beat.

"I'll tell him, Itachi," Kisame interrupted. This made Naruto raise his eyebrow slightly.

"Kid, I've don't a lot of shit in my life. Killed a lot of people, helped a lot of bad people, ya'know, selfish things," he explained. "We both have," he motioned toward Itachi for emphasis. Naruto listened intently in return, never hearing the shark-man talk this much about himself before. "I've killed comrades to protect information for my village. I've killed my sensei for betraying me and my village for his own fucking selfish gain." An unenthusiastic chuckle escaped his lips, which curled into a feral smile that showed off his shark-like teeth and made Naruto flinch slightly at the sight. "I was lost for the longest part of my shinobi career after that. I didn't know what was the truth, which was a lie. I believed that our leader wanting to create a super-gensjutsu was a brilliant way of creating peace. Itachi helped me come somewhat sane again since we've been partnered up." Seeing the long expression in the kid's face, Kisame sighed and surmised his ramblings for his short attention span.

"The gist of it is, brat, I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of. As a shinbi, and as a man." A pause.

Eye contact was made between Naruto and Kisame, and the former could have sworn he saw the most determined eyes he's ever seen. "And I'm – no, we're – going to make amends. For our village, and the world, if we can."

Naruto blinked heavily, not wanting to disrupt this awesome moment even a little.

That was until Kisame laughed heartily.

"I mean, the whole reason I joined the Akatsuki was because that motherfucker said he wanted to 'change the world'. Man, I'm such a moron for blindly following that prick."

Itachi nodded his head in affirm. "Me and Kisame have had a plan devised to disband from the Akatsuki and start a new organization, where we can really help the world instead of forcing it upon a false one like our leader wanted." Naruto was about to question what he meant (after all, who has ever seen Naruto so quiet before? He so wanted to speak just to say anything) before Kisame stole his chance.

"I would still be doing just that had it been for Itachi making me see what our leader wanted. At that point, I was just in the org' for the fun fights until the time came when we decided to ditch them." That comment made Naruto sweatdrop. Classic Kisame.

"And I was in for reconnaissance, for the most part. I still talk to a Konoha contact a few times a year to relay them any new information I can."

Naruto was in awe. Not only did he do the unthinkable that is murdering a whole clan, but the man also still held the village in such high regard that he would continue to relay pivotal information as a S-rank Nukenin. That level of dedication to the people – and village – he loved was exactly why Naruto proclaimed him as a hero in the first place.

"But why am I in the picture, then? That's all cool that your going to help the world and bring peace and all, but why are you helping me out?" The question was genuine; never in his life did anyone help him. Ever since he was a child Naruto learned to take care of himself and expect nothing from anyone, even if he did offer his services to anyone that crossed his path.

The ex-Akatsuki duo looked at each other hard for a moment. If Naruto hadn't been training under the eyes of the Uchiha for the last few weeks, he wouldn't had seen the genjutsu Itachi put Kisame under for a brief moment, likely using this as a way to converse for as long as they pleased.

What they were conversing about? Naruto had no idea.

Finally, Itachi answered the question that lingered in the tense, thick air while Kisame closed his eyes and nodded his head a few times. "When the time is right, Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha, we would like your assistance in world peace."

* * *

Nearby, a frog hummed a 'ribbit' before hopping off in the distance and vanishing in a plume of smoke.

* * *

I'm not really satisfying with this chapter, but It's as good as it's getting for now. It's really short and I may redo some parts or add something to make it flow better (because I don't think it flows very well) but let me know what you think, anyway. Thanks for all the reviews and follows, it means a lot.


	3. Chapter 3

" _Lord Hokage, there's something important we need to talk about."_

" _How important?"_

" _It's S-class, concerning a certain organization. Namely, Crow."_

 _A frown. Gesturing to the wall to the left of him, he waved his hand dismissively. Immediately, two blurs leapt out the window and out of the building, leaving the two men alone._

 _The elder man turned his attention back to his student standing before him. "Report, Jirayia."_

 _Said man crossed his arms and closed his eyes, trying to picture the best way to word his findings. Nodding once, he opened his eyes again. "There's a lot of changes coming. I've heard from my main contact, Crow, that the Akatsuki's plans changed. They're targeting the Kyuubi first to eliminiate the possibility of its Jinchuuriki getting stronger, since it's the strongest tailed beast."_

 _Hiruzen frowned, finding the news disturbing. Before he could inquire further, the toad sage continued on. "However, they assigned Cro-, er, Itachi and his choice as a partner. He informed me that he's coming with Kisame Hoshigaki. That's not the important bit, though."_

" _Well? What is?"_

" _Itachi informed me that Kisame and himself plan on ditching the organization while on this mission. The Kyuubi Junchuuriki is safe, for now."_

 _A relieved sigh that the elder man didn't even know he was holding in escaped his lips, which prompted him to take a long drag off of the steaming pipe he was holding with white knuckles. "That is good news. What's the catch, then?"_

" _Itachi and his partner are planning to observe the village, namely the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki. They will report to their leader on information when needed, but they said they will leave eventually before they are ordered to capture him. They plan on making their own organization, completely different than the Akatsuki. They plan on making peace throughout the elemental nations, believe it or not." A hesitant pause. "They asked me to join them on their quest."_

 _Now that was a shock. Hiruzen looked up at the determined eyes of his pupil. "That's a goal you've wanted for as long as I can remember, Jirayia. Itachi is a trustworthy character to follow, I'll admit, but why do they seek peace?"_

 _At this, Jirayia shrugged. "Itachi's always sought peace. Kisame, apparently, has as well, but was easily manipulated by their leader who put the wrong ideas in his head. Itachi said he was lost for the longest time, but the guy is loyal to a fault. He can be trusted."_

 _Hiruzen nodded. "Do we know who their leader is, yet?"_

 _Jirayia shook his head sadly. "Itachi believes that there is someone else controlling things from the top, and it's not Pein. He still doesn't know who, though."_

 _Sarutobi nodded. A silence was shared between them, neither awkward or forced. It was contemplative._

" _Can I ask how Minato's boy is?"_

 _The Hokage smiled at that. "Naruto? He's good. A troublemaker that puts even Kushina to shame. You should introduce yourself to him since you're staying around for a while."_

 _Jirayia laughed heartily at that. "Yeah, I guess I should. I just don't want to see if he hates me or not. I would, if I were him."_

" _You'd be surprised at the boy. He has his father's temperament, yet his mother's personality. It's quite the combination."_

" _I'm sure it is," he responded thoughtfully, "I'm sure it is…"_

* * *

Naruto woke peacefully, his eyes fluttering open to contrast with the light shining through his window. Today was the day of the finals for the exams. Naruto felt like he should be ecstatic, like he normally would, but his mind was elsewhere.

Truthfully, Naruto could hardly believe where his life was right now. The moment Itachi asked if he would aid them in their quest of peace made Naruto reflect harshly on his life in Konoha.

He befriended two elite shinobi of S-rank caliper, one of which (he found out with a bitter taste in his mouth) murdered his whole clan not because of power, but because of loyalty. That fact alone woke Naruto up from his crazed 'I wanna be Hokage' stupor. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he wasn't cut out to handle a scenario such as that; Naruto would have figured out an alternative even if it killed him. As Hokage, though, there would be very little legal wiggle room with deciding something like that.

Itachi definitely woke him up.

What had Naruto so conflicted, though, was his new dream, or lack thereof. What did he want to live for, to strive for? During his training Naruto thought about that often, but kept his focus on Itachi and Kisame and their rigorous training. Now that he was relaxing before the finals (and the impromptu question from Itachi regarding helping them in the future) he just wasn't sure. Part of him loved the idea of striving for such an ideal. World peace is something that sounded so appealing to the blond, because that was exactly what he wanted. That conflicted with his love for Konoha.

But did he really love Konoha?

The people there despised him to a certain degree. It had eased throughout the years, but it was still filled with cold glares and grudges he held no responsibility for.

No, he didn't love Konoha, he realized recently. He loved the precious people he made bonds with. They were few and he could probably count them on two hands, but were they worth staying for?

His 'maybe' answer to Itachi's proposition made Naruto very conflicted. Why couldn't he just say one or the other? Why'd it have to be so hard?

"Arg!" he groaned, flinging the covers off of his person before begrudgingly getting out of bed. "Whatever, I need to focus. Neji, Neji, Neji…" Muttering his opponents name over and over again, he got ready (as he normally would) and headed to the stadium.

* * *

The sounds of useless and excited chatter echoed throughout the stadium, now that most of the seats were occupied. The participants (including those who were already knocked out in the preliminaries) were in reserved seating near the edge of the stadium. Neji and Naruto, however, were already down on the ground, waiting for the proctor to get the 'okay' to begin the fights.

In the stands, many of the participants (mostly the girls) were idly gossiping over Naruto's wardrobe change. Tenten was all too eager to explain her part in his change in attire, something that the girls greatly approved of. He definitely looked a lot better than he did in his orange jumpsuit.

The guys in the group were laughing at Naruto's weapon of choice. Of course, Kiba made the same joke Tenten did in regards to the size of the sword and the size of his 'package' while Shikamaru appreciated the analytical point of the sword versus a Hyuuga, though was skeptical at the blond's skill at kenjutsu in just a month of training. He muttered something about Naruto being troublesome and leaned back in his chair, relaxing before the fights started.

The jonins in the group silently made their bets, excluding Kakashi, who seemed to be late as per usual.

Back on the floor, Neji and Naruto were awkwardly sizing the other up. "You've changed your outfit, Naruto Uzumaki. And you seemed to acquire a weapon to use against me. Very wise, to add length against a Hyuuga's Gentle Fist." His white eyes narrowed at the blond. "But fate has already decided this battle. You will loose. It is not too late to surrender now and avoid humiliation."

Naruto laughed, allowing his hair to run through his blond locks idly. "I'm so surprised. You're more of an idiot than I am, and that's saying something." Damn it. He was hanging around Kisame too much.

That comment made the stands roar in a chorus of laughter, but left the Hyuuga in question standing with a tic on his forehead. "How am I the idiot? You have no idea what I've been through to get here. It's settled. You will loose today."

Naruto just grinned in return. "No, I have no idea what you've been through, but the same goes for me. I've lived through a lot, and from my experiences, fate might as well not exist. Nothing is fated to happen. Your teammate Lee is proof of that." In the stands still in his bandages looking forlorn and depressed, Lee brightened considerably at the blond's praise, something that he wouldn't forget any time soon. "I am proof of that. If you believe that fate decides everything, then you obviously haven't been trying to change it hard enough."

At this, Neji frowned and turned his head over to the proctor. His voice was low, and his eyes were slits. Anger. "May we begin this match, yet?" he growled out.

With a nod, Genma cleared his throat before announcing the first fight. "The first match is between Naruto Uzumaki and Neji Hyuuga! Are both participants ready?" After receiving a nod from them both, he yelled "Begin!" before jumping backwards to referee the battle.

Neji activated his Byakugan right away, spreading his limbs into a defensive stance that his clan was famous for. Naruto, on the other hand, took hold of his wrapped Kubikiribōchō and started forward.

They parried for a few moments, clothed steel meeting the Jyuuken taijutsu of the Hyuuga. Neji's cold, white eyes grew wide at the speed of which Naruto swung his giant cleaver, but recovered quickly enough and began to target Naruto rather than his sword. A few times the Hyuuga managed to slip through Naruto's cleaver, but was cheekily pushed away by the blond's other hand, managing to direct Neji's strikes to the side without getting hit. _'How the hell is he holding that thing so easily?!'_ Was the Hyuuga's only thought.

Just as suddenly as it started, Naruto jumped back, far back, and skidded to a halt, his giant sword holding steadily in front of him. The audience cheered lightly at the contact, happy that they got a show early in the match, at least.

After all, nobody was expecting much of a fight between a nobody and a prodigy. It came as a pleasant surprise.

'Alright, we're basically evenly matched, even with my sword. That's pretty much what I expected. I can't use the Hidden Mist Jutsu, that would raise too much suspicion. Let's just send a few clones his way and see what happens.' The blond grinned before running back at Neji, his sword held in front of him in an offensive stance. 'I can't wait to see his face when I do this.' This time, however, he brought his other arm up with his forefinger and his middle finger sticking out at approximately chest-level. Naruto focused chakra for only a moment before he exclaimed his signature technique, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

On queue, the stadium erupted into a chorus of gasps. Vocalizing his own shock, Neji's eyes widened considerably at the blond's one-handed ability. "Impossible! One handed seals?" But sure enough, running before him were four Naruto's, all with the same chakra signature. They were shadow clones, alright.

Neji slightly shifted his stance to allow himself to be able to pivot on his back leg easier, something that Naruto failed to realize. The four Naruto's circled the Hyuuga in a series of slashes and jabs, and was able to land a few blows on the prodigy before Neji landed a few hits of his own, dispelling one of the Naruto's after a single blow.

That was when a whirring sound rang out in the air. Neji looked to the side of the arena, only to see what Neji concluded as a shadow clone with his arm extended, like he just threw something, and it's giant sword spinning like mad in his direction. The two Naruto's that remained each jumped forward and grabbed onto the Hyuuga, trying to force him in place, but didn't last long as Neji jabbed them both in the head with his Gentle Fist, dispelling them both. Forcing chakra into his legs, Neji jumped high, allowing the sword to spin past underneath him. Now airborne, the prodigy scanned the battlefield, white eyes frantically trying to locate the real Naruto. 'If that wasn't the real Naruto, then where the hell is he?'

As if answering his unspoken question, Neji heard a 'pop' underneath him.

Looking down, he saw a Naruto appear where the spinning sword was not a millisecond prior, leg outstretched to kick a devastating blow to the genius's 'man parts', all with a grin on his face.

Neji, obviously taken by surprise, let out an animalistic snarl as his arms glowed green, assuming the Jyuuken stance mid-air. "Eight Trigrams: 64 Palms!"

The Hyuuga's in the audience stiffened at the sight of a branch family member using a main-house clan technique. Hiashi, himself, glowered at the sight, and had little choice other than to continue to watch through half-lidded, angry eyes.

Hinata gasped at the sight of her cousin using the main-family technique, silently looking on in awe at the close fight between the two people she admired. Her little sister, who sat as rigid as she did beside her, was shocked as well. "Did-did he really just use that technique?" Hanabi whispered. Hinata could only nod in response.

The sight was very impressive, even to the poor Naruto caught in the technique. Over and over his tenketsu were hit in a spiraling whirl of limbs, sending pain after searing pain through his body. Naruto couldn't even hear the shouts of his technique as Neji was saying them; all he heard were the rushing of wind as his limbs moved faster than Naruto thought possible. Hell, he wasn't even sure if he was screaming, but damn did he want to if he wasn't. The pain was unreal. It was a good thing Kisame and Itachi trained him to endure the pain that he did.

Neji landed back on the ground after the jutsu was finished, stumbling forward for a moment before catching himself, obviously exhausted of most of his chakra. Naruto fell down at the same time, though his body hit the ground in a heaping 'thud' that echoed through the dead-quiet stadium. Not a sound was heard as Genma strolled forward, ready to stop the Hyuuga in case Neji decided to continue to pulverize the already incapacitated blond.

"It's over," Neji huffed audibly, exhausted, "I told you. Fate has already decided this battle in my favor. You loose, you nobody."

On the ground, Naruto was able to let out a weak chuckle. The audience listened on intently, not wanting to miss anything in this very epic, very unexpected fight. "I… wouldn't say t-that," he managed out, ending his sentence with a pitiful groan.

As if on queue, the ground beneath Neji bursted open, and out sprung a very dirty Naruto clone, landing a nasty left hook under the prodigy's chin. Neji howled a surprised yelp before landing backwards, unconscious. Said Naruto clone popped out of existence in cloud of mist, leaving two genin laying on the ground, one incapacitated and unconscious and the other barely awake.

The real Naruto struggled to get up. His body was screaming for him to stop, but the blond merely grit his teeth and growled out the pain. "Fate… doesn't mean… Jack shit," he proclaimed boldly, finding himself standing (albeit barely), his shaking legs threatening to betray him should he move even a single step.

Genma checked the Hyuuga before deciding the fight. To Naruto, it was the longest string of moments of his freaking life. 'Just call the match already!'

"Winner, Naruto Uzumaki!"

And that's when Naruto blacked out.

* * *

The audience, after the winner was proclaimed and the two contestants promptly fell to the floor in exhaustion, was dead silent.

That silence was quickly replaced with a sea of cheers.

Many spectators could be seen handing over currency to others begrudgingly, obviously betting on the Hyuuga to come out on top in the end. The prestigious clan were sitting silent, some baffled by the outcome and others livid at the thought of their best Hyuuga prodigy in years being beaten by the likes of Naruto. Hiashi was a prime example of this; his eyes betrayed him, which were glaring fiercely in the direction of the two downed genin. He didn't even excuse himself as he stormed out of the seating area, toward the direction of the med bay.

Hinata saw this and stood quickly to follow, intent to try and calm her father down as best she could, but quickly sat back down after feeling a rush of lightheadedness go to her head. Hanabi noticed this, and frowned at her elder sister. "Don't move so much, Hinata. You're still hurt from your fight with Neji. I'll go and make sure Neji is okay." She flashed a small smile before standing and running after her father, leaving Hinata alone with her clan guardians back in the stands, a frown openly displayed on her face.

Hiasi was already there when Neji was admitted to his room. Naruto was admitted to his own across the hall, and both were already awake and on the way to recovery. Hanabi was on her way, her legs sprinting her down the corridor but stopped abruptly when she heard her father's voice emitting from the room to her left. He sounded furious, and instead of confronting the two of them, she decided to sit outside the room and eavesdrop on their conversation.

"I'm disappointed in you, Neji," her father spoke loudly. Her cousin visibly cringed at his statement, mentally preparing himself for the scolding that was inevitably coming next. "But not because you lost," her father began, closing the gap between nephew and uncle. Neji reacted with a confused expression, but said nothing, deciding instead to allow his uncle to continue.

"I'm disappointed in you for blindly believing that fate decides everything in this world. My brother would never have wanted you to think with that mindset."

This made Neji fume. "How could you know what my father wanted and didn't want for me? He's dead."

Hiashi reacted with no emotion. Instead, he produced a scroll from the confines of his robe and threw it at the injured Hyuuga sitting on front of him who deftly caught it in both hands. "You do not know the truth on what happened that day. Your father produced this scroll before he did what he did. The writing is authentic; you may use your Byakugan to confirm this if you wish. But the truth of the matter is he sacrificed himself willingly to save the entirety of the clan. He did something that I adamantly told him not to."

Her cousin was speechless at this information. With shaking hands he opened the scroll, and poured his eyes to read inch after inch of it. Hanabi covered her mouth to keep herself from gasping. 'Is that really what happened?'

"It ain't nice to eavesdrop, you know."

Hanabi visibly straightened at the sound of the voice speaking to her, and silently turned her head to the right to see Naruto sitting in his own room, kicking his legs off the table like a kid on a swingset. The blond motioned for her to come inside to hide the fact that she was listening in on such a private conversation that, in all honesty, wasn't meant for her ears.

Hesitantly, Hanabi complied to his demand; she was caught, plain and simple. "I-I didn't intentionally mean to eavesdrop…"

The blond grinned brightly at her. "I know. I was watching." Naruto took a moment to look her over. She was very pretty for someone so young; it was odd, usually the Hyuuga's eyes creeped him out something fierce, but hers didn't bother him as much. Shaking himself out of his stupor, he held out his hand in a friendly gesture. "I'm Naruto. From your looks I'm taking it your related to Neji and the guy in there somehow?"

She nodded stiffly. "I'm Hanabi, Neji's cousin. That 'guy' in there is my father." The last word was said with a hint of venom in her diction. "You might know my sister, she's in your graduating class." Again, she didn't sound to happy at the mention of her family. In fact, everything that involved her family was said in what Naruto could only describe as disgust.

"Well don't sound so happy about them," Naruto teased lightly.

Hanabi just glared the the boy sitting before her. "What do you know? You don't live with them."

Naruto took a thoughtful pose for a moment. "That's true, I don't." He pointed at Hiashi across the hall, oblivious to their conversation and too engrossed in his own. "He doesn't seem like such a bad guy, though. Looks like he's trying to get Neji off the whole 'fate controls everything' bit he's been stuck on for most of his life. Hinata is a nice girl, too."

The girl before him shook her head violently, her silky black hair flowing with her as her head tossed from side to side. "From what I listened to he's only doing that because he feels obligated to. He only cares about the clan and nothing more. And you don't know anything, idiot. My family doesn't give a damn about me."

At her insult, Naruto grew a tic mark. You'd think training with Kisame on a daily basis, Naruto would learn to take insults with open arms and then shrug them off. Coming from the girl in front of him (who was obviously a few years younger than he was) it just rubbed him the wrong way. "Listen here, you little firecracker-"

A snort. "Firecracker?"

"Yeah, you remind me of a firecracker. Got a problem with that?"

Hanabi huffed and turned her head away. "I'm not anything like a firecracker, idiot. I'm leaving now." With that, she turned on her heels and stormed off.

"Whatever. Later, little firecracker!" Naruto called out and grinned when he heard a faint exasperated cry of frustration down the hall. He totally won that battle.

* * *

Back at the stands, Hanabi returned to her seat and let out a huff of annoyance. Her sister, obviously startled by her little sister's body language, expressed her concernes. "Hanabi, is everything okay?"

The little Hyuuga turned very abruptly to her sister. "Everything's fine. Father just wanted to talk to Neji, that's all." After she said her piece, she turned away from her sister.

A very confused Hinata furrowed her brow at her but remained quiet. Whatever was bothering her, it was best to let her fumes die out.

"Winner by forfeit, Temari of Suna!"

A chorus of groans echoed the stands. "I thought that Nara brat finally did her in! What a quitter!" an indistinguishable voice cried above the others. The shinobi participants only sighed, expecting as much from the lazy Shikamaru. Shrugging, said Nara stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked off the competition grounds, mumbling all the way.

"Man, why'd it have to be a girl…"

After the teasing Shikamaru received from his pupils back in the stands, the crowd eventually became quiet and eagerly anticipated the next fight. Sure enough, on the battlefield stood Sasuke and Kakashi, one looking a tad bewildered and the other trademarking his famous eye smile that irked many and confused all. How in the hell did he do that?

"Sorry we're late," The elder Jonin exclaimed, not bothering to bore everyone with a nonsensical reason as to their tardiness. He turned his gaze over to Genma. "Sasuke can still fight, can't he?"

The proctor thought for a moment. "I believe so. I think his match is up next, actually, Shikamaru Nara just finished his own match against his opponent." Clearing his throat loudly, Genma cupped his hands to his mouth for added volume. "Can Garra of Suna come down to the floor?"

The instant those words were uttered, sand particles appeared around them and formed the mysterious redhead that was Sasuke's opponent. Kakashi wished Sasuke good luck and hopped up the the Jonin spectator spot, wordlessly reaching out his hand to collect the money he had won from betting on his first genin squad mate (which happened to be a large sum, to his delight).

"Sasuke Uchiha of Konoha versus Subaku no Gaara of Suna. Are both participants ready?" Sasuke gave a nod, his mouth forming into an excited smirk and Gaara barly inclined his head. Good enough, Genma supposed. "Begin!"

Things happened very quickly. Sasuke tried very hard to beat Gaara with his speed, at first, but after the fight the Suna ninja had with Rock Lee, he was a little more prepared for it. The Uchiha did end up getting a few good hits in on him, but after a while Gaara came back with some good counter attacks (thanks to that goddamn sand of his).

Within a few moments, Gaara encased himself in a sand dome that completely concealed himself from his opponent, and everything else in the arena. Even his Sharingan couldn't detect any chakra signatures within the sand; is Gaara even in there?

With a few hand signs, Sasuke's hand began to light up with a blue aura, mixing with the sound of a thousand birds echoing throughout the arena in a spectacular way that made his doujoutsu look even more menacing. "Chidori!"

Without waiting for whatever it was that Gaara was doing, Sasuke ran forward and aimed straight for the middle of the dome, allowing his powerful attack to pierce the hardened sand and into the dome.

Wild screaming could be heard from inside the dome, a pitiful screeching that made the Uchiha want to pull his arm out, but found it stuck. With some force he finally pulled it free, and back pedaled away with wary eyes.

That's when, as Kisame would very accurately put it, shit hit the fucking fan.

Feather's littered the air, deftly mesmerizing each person sitting in the stands. Only the upper level chuunin and jonin were able to resist the tantalizing fall of the feathers littering the air, but were unable to bask in the glory for long. In an instant, several hundred shinobi jumped out (from Kami know's where) and made a B-line toward downed Konoha shinobi and civilians – anyone from Konoha, apparently, were fair game.

"Shit!" Kakashi swore, using his superior sleight of hand to produce a kunai and lift his headband all in one fluid motion. "Protect the civilians! Jonin fight, any others wake up any chuunin or above you can find!"

And in an instant, his orders were called, and his orders were being followed.

In the corner of his eye, he noticed the red head from Suna gathering with his team members and breaking away from the arena at a high speed. Sasuke, who fought the powerful genjutsu via his doujutsu, scanned the crowd to find his sensei. At eye contact, he made hand signals at indistinguishable speeds (which the cyclops easily followed thanks to his own sharingan).

'Gaara team fled. Suspicious. I will pursuit.'

With a single signal, Kakashi replied in full.

'Be careful.'

* * *

"What the heck is going on?!"

The sounds of metal clashing with metal reverberated through the air, aided along by sounds of grunts and the occasional choking scream that (he could only surmise) indicated the death of someone.

'Is this what Itachi and Sharky were discussing about?' Naruto furrowed his eyebrows in an attempt to search the cavity that is his brain but cried out in exasperation when he came up empty. 'I should have payed more attention, damn it!'

With one hand on the hilt of his sword that was currently slung behind his back, Naruto jumped up, his destination: the roof.

After applying chakra to his feet and sticking to the slick shingles of the infirmary rooftop, the blond scanned the area around the arena with hard eyes.

"Looking for someone, brat?"

Startled, Naruto squeaked the manliest squeal Kisame had ever heard. The shark man laughed loudly, which made Naruto absolutely furious. "What the hell, Sharky? Why would you sneak up on me like that? Now is not the time for your stupid-"

"Do you want my help or not?"

Pouting, the blond relented, but showed his annoyance by crossing his arms over his chest. The amused look on Kisame's face was short lived, however, as the blond nodded his head impatiently for him to talk, giving him the 'well, I shut up now, so talk' face.

The shark man grinned, baring his sharpened teeth at the young boy who was obviously not into his antics at the moment. "Alright, shithead, here's the down-low, and I'll Keep It Simple Stupid for ya': Konoha's being attacked by Suna and Oto, Orochimaru is disguising himself as the Kazekage, Suna probably doesn't have a clue that Orochimaru is in on this at all, and everyone in the arena that is genin or lower is asleep in a genjutsu. Itachi is in disguise to make sure the Hokage doesn't die from the snake bastard, and I'm going to do what I can to help him once I'm done explaining everything to you. Did I miss anything?"

For the longest time, the two shinobi were silent, Naruto because he was processing the information and trying to figure out is Kisame was full of shit (which he knew he wasn't, but he couldn't help but hope anyway) and Kisame because he was trying to remember if he was forgetting anything.

"Oh, right, I saw your teammate pursuing three Suna genin a couple of minutes ago, heading to the east forest. One of them was a jinchuuriki like yourself, so you might wanna go make sure he doesn't die."

At this information, Naruto bellowed out a frustrated animalistic-like outcry (he didn't even know what it was, but it felt good to vocalize _some_ frustration) and took off toward the east.

Kisame hummed. "I think he took that rather well."

* * *

"Lord Hokage!"

Worried cries of their leader murmured through the small group of ANBU that crowded around what appeared to be a barrier of sorts. Inside stood four ninja, each with their arms outstretched that held the barrier in place.

What worried them, though, was the two figures standing still inside of the crimson cage, and what worried them even more was the fact that they were helpless to do anything to help them, which is what they were trained and hired to do.

"Sarutobi-sensei," hissed the opposing figure with a hint of venom mixed with glee in his voice. "I've been waiting for this moment for a long time."

The Hokage only glared in return, having trouble finding the right words to rebuttal his old student's comment. "Orochimaru. I had a feeling something like this would come from the likes of you." His tone held nothing short of all the anger the elder man was feeling, and then some.

"You flatter me, sensei. It takes me by no surprise that it was this simple to infiltrate your village. It's a pity. This place was always weak."

The Hokage pierced his glare straight into his student's skull. "Why are you doing this, Orochimaru? Because you want revenge on the village you deserted?"

This time, it was the Sannin's turn to glare. "Nonsense. I just wish to test the waters, if you understand my meaning."

Sarutobi snarled viciously, allowing all his rage and frustration to come out at once. "Enough words! I may be old, but I have more than enough Will of Fire to take you out, even if I have to die along with you!"

Orochimaru smiled widely, curling into a wicked expression of a madman. "Let us dance, then, sensei!"

And that was only the beginning of the invasion of the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

* * *

I had everything typed pretty much how I wanted and my computer crashed, so all of this was retyped. It's not bad, but it isn't perfect and how I envisioned it either. I'll take time to edit this better later on, but I just wanted to say that I'm not abandoning this or anything. I'm still here.

I'm sorry for the wait.


	4. Chapter 4

Sprinkles of sand whisked around the air lazily, hovering and falling with a certain grace that Naruto just couldn't describe.

Had it not been for a certain red-haired Suna ninja standing in front of him with a maniacal smile firmly plastered on his face and sand cascading onto his body, he would describe it as gorgeous and a sight to behold.

Naruto huffed slightly. Sasuke was incapacitated due to the mysterious marks that littered his body like a bad tattoo, and could only watch from afar (much to his chagrin) at the intense battle between the two jinchuuriki. Sakura was faring worse than her crush; she was literally being crushed against a tree with a dense monster sand-arm pinning her to the bark with no inclination to ever let up.

"Naruto!" Gaara bellowed out, his voice thick with excitement and adrenaline. "Prove my existence! Forget your friends and fight for only yourself!" He expanded his arms, gesturing out to nothing and everything in front of him. "Only then will you become strong!" He bellowed out a laugh unlike any other, and dashed forward in what Naruto thought as Ungodly speeds.

They parried for a while; Naruto with his Kubikiribōchō held tightly in his dominant hand and Gaara with the massive amounts of sand at his disposal. Things were looking even until Gaara used a sand tail to throw Naruto off balance and then proceeding to swipe at him with his hardened claws. Naruto had no choice but to take the hit; instead of taking his head on, he dropped his sword completely and braced himself by crossing his arms in an 'X' formation over the area the claw was targeting.

In this case, it was his face.

With an overpowering force, Naruto skidded to a halt. Panting, now, the blond cursed himself for being so reckless. 'Alright, Naruto, think. This dude is literally manifesting himself into a sand Yeti. What can ya do to beat all that sand?'

Suddenly, Naruto's eyes lit up. He had a plan.

Naruto grinned at the half-monster that was now standing in front of him. "Last chance, Gaara. Let Sakura go and leave."

The redhead went ballistic, allowing himself to bend forward in a fit of hysterical laughter. "Your weakness baffles me, Naruto! Still caring for your friends when you should be more concerned about your own safety. So weak!"

Saliva hit dirt, the source coming from the blond himself, like Gaara's sentiment was leaving a bad taste in his mouth and spitting would solve that. "I warned you."

Without any warning, the area around them swallowed them in a deep, dense mist.

Watching from afar and recognizing the jutsu right away, Sasuke sat up despite the overbearing pain he was in and frantically searched around. 'I thought Zabuza was dead! Where the hell did this jutsu come from?' With his eyes rapidly scanning the battlefield like a human sonar and his calculating mind playing in tandem with his doujtusu, Sasuke could only deduce one conclusion from this: Naruto was the one creating the mist.

But how? There were no handsigns used! Even then, the amount of chakra rapidly filling the misty air was almost to the level that Zabuza had used on them. How the hell did Naruto, of all people, learn to not only perfect the veteran jutsu that was once used against them, but to use it without any handsigns whatsoever?

A wild pain erupted in his neck, and with a quivering hand clutched the source of that pain as tightly as he could muster, as if that single action would have an effect. 'Curse this curse mark… I should be helping!'

Back on the battlefield, Gaara could only look on in shocked wonder as the mischievous grin on the blonds face slowly faded away behind the white wall of vapor, along with the rest of the boy. An cry rang out in the wooded area, a monstrous, devilish yell that reverberated the bones of all shinobi around the fighting area. Each word the redhead spoke was an angry roar, (which, in all honesty, kinda shook his blond opponent) "Uzumaki! I will kill you!"

Then, silence.

* * *

ANBU operatives could only watch in absolute awe as the experienced shinobi fought in the confines of the red prison. "Damn it!" One operative, arguably the most experienced of the group, swore out loud. "There's really no way in!"

Another ANBU shook his head in dismay. "They really outclassed us." Short, negative, but it was the truth. Nobody made a comment to retort.

Inside, all chatter ceased to exist. The only spoken sounds were the hisses of weapons greeting one another, the grunts and cries of two very experienced fighters who knew this was a 'do-or-die' situation. Sarutobi, his bo staff. His student, poisoned katana.

Despite his old age, The Professor was holding his own against his lithe student prodigy. Orochimaru only smiled broadly at the exhilarating display of power; the man wasn't a Hokage for nothing, and because he was an old student, he knew just how powerful the man really was. "I seem to remember you being tougher, Sarutobi-sensei." A low chuckle escaped pale lips.

The glint in his eye, though, made the Hokage's stomach churn.

"I've already done my fair share of fighting. I'm starting to bore of this exhibition of ours." As he spoke, the sannin made several hand seals and smacked them both hard on the roof tiles they were standing on. "Let's see how you fare with this little number!"

The roof shook violently, so much so Sarutobi was concerned the roof would collapse with its intensity. What emerged, though, both confused and worried the elder man greatly. Rising from the hard tiles were two boxes, both a little larger than the size of a person. Orochimaru only smiled wickedly as the boxes hissed and steamed with the summoning. A third began to rise in front of the other two, but with quick thinking and a single hand seal, the Hokage pushed with all his might to keep the third from rising all the way. Sweat beaded on his forehead, swimming down his brow and dripping down to the bridge of his nose before cascading to the floor. The power he was holding back was enormous, and it only further drove him to make sure whatever was in that box would not see the light of day.

As quickly as it came, the box fell back into the floor after a failed summoning thanks to the elder man. A frown appeared on Orochimaru's face, but only momentarily. 'He managed to stop the third one. No matter. Two will more than suffice.'

Hard breaths labored out of the old man. 'Whatever was in that box fought rather difficultly to come up. I'm glad I managed to stop it, but the other two seem almost as powerful. What on Earth could be in them?'

No sooner had he questioned it, the two box's popped open unexpectedly and dusty smoke billowed out. Sarutobi's breath hitched when he recognized the two figures that stepped out of the box:

Hashirama and Tobirama Senju.

He was speechless. Could it be real?

"What are you going to do now, Sarutobi-sensei~?" his student rhetorically asked, an obvious glee dominant in his diction. "What _can_ you do? Hm?"

Silence was his only answer while his brain tried to process the circumstances that currently presented itself him to him. What really could he do against the two most elite shinobi the world has ever known?

"It's been a very long time, Saru." The first remarked. His voice was robotic, with zero inflection present. It chilled the old man to the core.

"Oh. It's you. You've gotten so old, Sarutobi." The second agreed with his brother in his monotone heckle. Normally the old man would have made a witty remark straight back at him, but he was unable to form such sentences.

"Never in my life had I imagined that I would have to face off against my brethren in this manner," he aimed at his pupil. Orochimaru only smiled in glee at his sensei's reaction. Exactly as he had imagined. "What a vile trick. Coming from you, it's hardly surprising anymore."

ANBU surrounding the scene were all shocked at the sudden turn of events. "Is-is this even real?" one asked with a quiver in his voice.

Disgusted, appalled, and outright furious, Sarutobi assumed a stance. "Please prepare yourself, First Lord Hokage, Second Lord Hokage-"

"Stop, Sarutobi." The first remarked with the same monotonous voice. The powerful summoned men brought a single handsign in front of their face, and for a moment Sarutobi was ready to counterattack, but the soft eyes from his once brothers made him still. With a single pulse of chakra, the two men exclaimed 'Kai' before all hell broke loose.

In place of the first two leaders of The Village Hidden in the Leaves, stood Itachi Uchiha in Hashirama's stead, and Kisame Hoshigaki in Tobirama's.

This time, it was Orochimaru's turn to be perturbed. "What is this?" came the angry hiss of the snake sannin, the words spitting venom in and of itself.

Turning around with their backs now facing Sarutobi and staring in the eyes of the now furious pale man that summoned them, Itachi spoke with his usual calm demeanor. "You're very predictable, Orochimaru." Beside him, the shark-man was grinning wildly with his Samehada drooped over his shoulder.

Now Sarutobi was _really_ confused.

* * *

All was still in the misty forest. Gruesome breathes were the only noise in the white mist that covered the area, originating from Gaara himself. He was furious, pissed at the blond for his unprecedented jutsu that allowed him to cower and hide from him. "You're only delaying the inevitable, Uzumaki! Come out so I can prove my existence by finally killing you!"

Almost like a rebuttal to this, Naruto creeped behind the ever-growing sand monster that Gaara was slowly becoming. Gaara immediately sensed a shift in the veil of chakra mist behind him, courtesy of the floating sprinkles of sand surrounding his person, and with a flick of his tail, whipped the blond with all the might he could muster.

Naruto only smirked to himself. Sloppy. The anger he inadvertently caused was too much for the redhead, and was overcome in his want – no, need – to 'prove his existence' by killing him. Raising his cleaver, Naruto positioned it so that when Gaara tried to shred the blond with his sand tail, it instead ran right into the sharp glowing blade of his Kubikiribōchō, finally unveiled with the cloth laying somewhere else on the forest floor.

Instead of the sand blowing into a cloud of orange dust and immediately wrapping itself around the blond in its instinct retaliation, the tail was sliced off Gaara's ever-growing sand body and fell with a thud on the moist wooded ground.

Sasuke saw all this with his mouth agape and his hand still wildly clutching the pain shooting from his neck. "No way! That's Zabuza's sword!" the exclamation was loud, without the Uchiha meaning it to be, and Naruto heard it from where he stood. 'I can't believe I didn't notice it before. Tch. At this rate this dobe will catch up to me, even with this damn cursed mark.' The lone Uchiha watched with a brooding expression, hoping his knuckleheaded teammate could do something – anything – against the monster of sand.

'I didn't want them to find out about it so soon, damn it all. Now they'll question me about everything.' Another attempt at a hit from Gaara snapped him out of his thoughts and back at the battle at hand.

"What did you do to me, Uzumaki?!" Was the roar Naruto was waiting for. It brought bliss to his ears and smiled cynically at the sound. Damn it. He blamed Kisame for his corrupted mannerisms.

A mischievous grin plagued his features. "You may have magical sand-control-whatever powers, but you don't know a thing about sand. I may not be the smartest kid in class, but even I know what happens when sand gets wet." He jumped back, distancing himself from Gaara with a single leap, disappearing in the fog once again. Itachi, in that beautiful genjutsu of his and with the aid of Kisame (it was mostly Kisame) beat the dumb out of the blond; no more did Naruto become cocky in the midst of battle. No more did he rush in, planless. No, he'd been stabbed too many times for gloating over a glancing blow he may have scored.

"No!" Frantic, angry. Enraged. Enraged at the fact the blond idiot outsmarted him. "My sand is too heavy! How did you get my sand so wet?" Silence. "Naruto!" came the shriek, followed by ragged breathing. Besides the labored breathes that originated from the steadily growing jinchuriki, there was absolute silence around them. Even Sasuke didn't dare utter a sound.

This time, Sasuke saw Naruto coming; it was feint, and hard to see due to the chakra laced mist all around them, but he glimpsed a blur of yellow that struck Gaara on the side, ripping a chink in the sand that surrounded him. Immeditaely the sand-skin began to heal itself, albeit slowly due to the shielding material being wet and heavy. As suddenly as he struck, Naruto vanished in the fog yet again.

Sasuke blinked once he realized Naruto landed on the branch to his right. "That's my shadow clone distracting him right now," the blond explained in a hushed whisper that Sasuke barely caught. "I won't be able to do this for long. I'm running out of ideas here, teme. How are you feeling, fighting-wise?"

A shake of the head. "Not good, dobe. I can barely move my body at the rate my curse mark is spreading. It's taking all my will to not let it get out of control. It-it feels like my body is burning, all over, and the more I fight it the worse it gets." He brought his hand in front of his face, and it shook, violently spazzing in its own accord. "I-I like how it makes me feel. I love the power it gives me, but if it's from that snake Orochimaru, then I don't want anything to do with it."

Naruto watched in awe at the will his comrade had. There it was, power beyond the young genin's dreams at his fingertips, yet he would deny that power because it was foreign to him, created by the most corrupted sannin that was the cause of this entire invasion to begin with. Naruto didn't know whether it was pride or willpower, but no matter the case, it didn't help this fight in the slightest.

"Don't fight it."

Sasuke gasped audibly and stared, at first shocked by the blond's answer, then with anger and malice in his spinning red eyes. "Are you fucking-"

"Listen to me, Sasuke. We could die out here, Sakura could die out here. Our village could be destroyed by this lunatic if we don't stop him here and now." It was at this moment that Sasuke saw a side of Naruto that he had never seen before; his face was unreadable, determined, even. His tone was that of disgust, albeit reluctant. "I don't want you to use that shit even more than you don't. I don't want my best fucking friend to give in to hate, especially the kind that gives him power. But what choice do we have? Orochimaru gave you that mark, yeah, but how ironic would it be if you used it to help stop the invasion that he started?" Naruto allowed the briefest of chuckled to escape his lips before allowing his determined eyes to stare directly into Sasuke's shocked ones.

"You use that power, and we end it quick, before it gets too out of control. We still don't know exactly what can happen if you use it for too long, right? Just don't let it get to your head. I mean it. And if you do, I'll stop you."

"And what if you can't?"

"I'll stop you."

The Uchiha only stared into the blue orbs of his teammate, filled with resolve. As much as Sasuke pained to admit it, the idiot was right. With quivering limbs he stood, ignoring the immense pain his nerves were screaming at him. "We hit him hard and fast, then." Naruto nodded an affirm, but before Naruto could jump back into the fray, Sasuke threw his arm out in front of him. "And afterward, you and me are… going to have a long chat."

Naruto gulped. Well that was vague. "No problem," He grinned at him, his hand idly reaching to his hair and running his fingers through it, before the duo jumped down toward the growling menace that was Gaara.

* * *

"Kukukuku… Itachi, Kisame, I didn't think I'd see you two again for quite some time. And without your Akatsuki robes and rings." He was laughing, but he was far from entertained. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We knew of your attack on this village for quite some time. It's as I stated, your predictable." Calm, stoic, relaxed. It infuriated the snake sannin to no end.

The snake launched, his sights trained on Itachi. With a sickening crack, his neck elongated forward (much like a snake) and wrapped around the Uchiha. Before that could happen, Kisame sprung forward and, with his Samehada already mid swing, connected with pale skin of the Sannin.

It was odd, to Kisame; it felt elastic, like the neck just formed around his legendary sword with no damage to the skin, and with a snarl he saw Orochimaru turn his head toward him and charge at him instead. The man unhinged his jaw with a series of sickening cracks and hisses and out came a sword; the legendary sword, Kusanagi, showed itself, and unfortunately for Kisame, it was aimed right for him.

That was when Sarutobi intervened; with a cry he elongated his bo staff, swatting away the head of his pupil with relative ease. It was at that time that Orochimaru retracted his head back, retreating his body as a whole.

"Why are you here, Itachi? What business do you have in Konoha other than to foil my plans?" He hissed.

Itachi blinked only once before allowing his eyes to settle once again upon the snake in front of him, his red eyes spinning in intimidation. "I do not have to answer to you, Orochimaru."

"Is it because I defected from the organization?" Orochimaru brought a finger to his chin, his actions obviously sarcastic. "Or is there another reason? Do you wish to save your precious home?" A laugh escaped his lips. "Or is it because your nearly blind that you finally return? Don't think I didn't notice the far-away look in your eyes, Uchiha. Been using your Mangekyo Sharingan too much, have you?"

Itachi knew Orochimaru was trying to test his temper, and he managed to calm himself by steeling a few breaths before answering in an even tone. "I do not have to answer you, Orochimaru," Itachi stated again. Kisame only hummed beside him.

Orochimaru let out a snarl, finally breaking of his arrogant façade. "What will you do once you are out of this barrier, hm? ANBU will surely surround you two and overwhelm you. Surely I'm not worth two Akastuki members lives?"

It was Kisame's turn to speak. "Stoic-san here put up a genjutsu to mask our presence. What they see now is you and the Hokage behind us just standing there, like a bunch of weird-o's."

Orochimaru snarled, though it was mostly directed at himself. This was a bad situation for him, indeed. Was the destruction of Konoha at this time worth his life? The two organization members didn't seem to waver in the slightest; their resolve was set.

Does he run? Or fight?

* * *

"H-how is he doing this?" croaked the Suna blond, watching the fight from a safe distance from afar. Her brother, Kankuro, was beside her asking himself the same question, though quietly in his head.

"I-I don't know. This kid's good – he's giving Gaara a run for his money. I'd help him, but Gaara would only swat me away." The last bit was muttered, but Temari clearly heard him and nodded in agreement. They could only watch and listen (but mostly listen – that fog is _thick_ ) as Naruto battered around their brother in the deep mist.

"I don't want to be around when he fully awakens the thing, that's for sure."

A loud, agonizing scream echoed in the distance, relatively close to the fight at hand. The chakra, along with the stench of it, poured into the fray and mixed with the blond's mist to create a truly devastating battleground.

Gaara, immediately sensing the new chakra, welcomed the new contender with open arms. "Yes! Fight me! Show me what it means to be alive! Only then can I prove my existence to Mother!"

And just like that, Gaara yelled the loudest the two Konoha genin ever heard, before smoke mingled with the mist.

Shukaku was alive again.

"Sasuke! Go!"

The two genin rushed forward with teamwork in the front of their mind, thanks to their sensei Kakashi who drilled the idea into their heads in the first place.

Now was the time to test everything the pervert taught them.

Naruto was in close quarters, finally realizing the smoke that was in his mist was coming from Gaara and not a technique. A wall of sand was standing tall in front of him, and even he gulped as he looked up the sand-mountain that seemed to form.

"Oh, hell-"

A strong gust of sand attacked the blond quickly, way to fast for him to comprehend. With chakra laced legs Naruto stuck to the ground, arms crossed in an 'x' to defend himself from whatever was coming.

"Weeeeeeeeeee! I'm free!" was all Naruto heard. Frowning, confused, Naruto jumped backwards and tried to get to higher ground to assess what just happened to Gaara.

When he landed on a branch away from all the sand, Naruto gasped. "W-What?"

Gaara was no more; no, that was a lie. He was a pimple on a monster of sand – literally a monster. It was conscious, a mouth that talked and legs and arms and a tail and-

Inhale, exhale. Calm down, Naruto. Think.

Gaara was literally a pimple on the thing's forehead, though it looked as if the boy was sleeping. The monster was idly talking to itself, repeating over and over again how awesome it was to finally be free from its container. This alone made Naruto sweat; this was a freaking Bijuu. Naruto and Sasuke were about to try and take on a Bijuu. How could they even do that, anyway?

Suddenly, Naruto felt the branch he was standing on get significantly heavier. He spared a glance to his left and saw his teammate standing there, obviously strained, with marks moving sporadically over his body. "What the hell do we do now?"

Naruto was thinking the same thing. "Listen to it, teme. It keeps saying it's free. Gaara's passed out on top of it like a freaking zit. The only thing I can think of it to wake Gaara up. There's no way we're going to be able to take on this thing. The least we can do is try to see if waking up Gaara would do anything useful." The blond cursed at their predicament. "If that fails, when we stall him until someone does come and help. There's no missing this chakra, it's massive."

Surprisingly, Sasuke only nodded at the plan. Naruto could only assume it was because of the pain he was in; it was distracting him from thinking about anything at all. Now that Naruto noticed, Sasuke's skin was getting significantly darker than his usual pale shade, which worried the blond a bit. "Let's do this quick," Naruto added, and just like that, the two Genin were off.

Naruto jumped from his spot on the branch to the arm of the beast. Arms trailing behind him, he darted up the 'sleeve' of Shukaku and jumped to the shoulder. By now the one-tail noticed him, and Naruto could hear the booming voice over his head. "What's this? A flea?" The other arm of the beast came up and struck the shoulder Naruto was standing. Gasping, Naruto powered up his legs with chakra and jumped up high, barely scraping by as the sand crashed down on more sand.

Sasuke, circling around the battle while Naruto distracted, found an opening and jumped into the fray, his aim being the redhead sleeping on Shukaku's head. Just before he could reach him, though, a gust of air hit him hard and threw him back. Sasuke landed, hard, against a tree behind him, but with a grunt and a whole lot of effort, took off again in the demon's direction.

"Ooh, two fleas! I hate fleas!" His voice was absolutely giddy. "I get to kill some fleas! Hehe!"

Naruto cursed. By this point his mist had all but dissipated. He didn't have enough chakra to test another one, and even then Sasuke would have trouble seeing in it since he joined the fight. Too many risks outweigh the possible pros.

Pissed and desperate, Naruto hefted his cleaver and charged again. He made a few seal-less clones as he ran; four Naruto's sprinted toward the towering monster of sand, each with a different task in mind.

Clone one was designed to pester, and boy did he pester. He used his cleaver to hack at the Achilles' of the monster, along with any lower bits of sand that he could find. He was able to do this while the other Naruto's were doing their own separate tasks. His job was small, and was only a means to anger the beast.

Clone two had a similar job, only he took to the trees and hurled all the weapons in his arsenal. Shuriken after shuriken, kunai after kunai. Even his Kubikiribōchō was thrown, a whisteling metal in the air that stuck itself in anything it could find.

The last clone, clone three, was using all the jutsu that the boy knew to throw at it, water jutsu especially. Since it was Kisame who tutored him, the number of water jutsu he knew (albeit low grade jutsu, but still effective in this case) allowed him to slow the monster down considerably. Any dry sand he could find was drenched in any water technique he could use.

Naruto, the original, was again running along the arms of the beast, taking its attention away from his clones entirely. His only job was to survive, allowing the demon to use its Wind Bullets to target himself. He dodged, of course.

He also talked the most smack he's ever talked.

"Hey, Kittylitter, you gonna hit me or what?"

"You must really be the worst Bijuu!"

"One tails? You must be the runt of the litter, am I right?"

"Oi, since you're basically a giant litter box, you don't mind if I can take a piss here, right?"

Sasuke would have smirked at his distraction had he not been so focused on finding an opening to strike the redhead still sleeping peacefully on the demon's forehead. 'Leave it to Naruto to piss it off.'

"You little piss-ant! Come here! **Wind Style: Massive Exploding Wind Bullet!** "

With wide eyes, Naruto was engulfed in the wind. He felt scratches lining up his body, stinging with the sand that caught deep in his cuts. He heard screaming – was it his own? He couldn't tell anymore. A wave of pain flooded his senses and all his focus was on the raging pain in his left arm (not his dominant arm, thank god). Naruto was almost tempted to look down at his arm, but he dared not take his eyes away from his enemy; Itachi made sure of that fact. Despite his urges of glancing at the origin of the immense pain that was flooding his brain, Naruto steadied his breath and thought hard about what to do, lest he be hit by that damn wind technique again.

So, Naruto did the only thing he could think to do; he performed a Kawarimi with a stump his now-expired clone noticed a few minutes prior.

The damage was done, however; drained of chakra and battered all to hell, Naruto could only lay down on the cold, wet ground and pray that Sasuke could reach the redhead and that his plan would work.

'Man, I hope… this can work,' was Naruto's last thought before he passed out, the pain emitting from his arm finally catching up to him without the adrenaline coursing through his exhausted body.

Sasuke, however, saw the blond get blown to high Hell, and for a moment he was concerned.

But that's when he saw it; his opening.

All other thoughts of the blond idiot and the cursed mark that was flowing hate through him went out the window, his main priority the redhead in front of him and the one chance he had to hit him. With chakra laced in his legs and the adrenaline coursing through his veins (along with the curse mark aiding in his power) the Uchiha darted forward with everything he had, his sharingan eyes rapidly moving while staring at back of the jinchuuriki's head.

Shukaku quickly darted his head toward the boy, but it was too late. Sasuke was already mid-punch toward the sleeping Gaara, and with a cry his fist collided with the squishy face of the red head.

All was still, for a moment. Two moments. An eternity.

Then all the sand began to crumble away.

* * *

This has been written, rewritten, and rewritten some more. I feel like it's rushed, still. I'm sorry for the long wait.

I've been having trouble figuring out where to go with this story, and I have a billion ideas running through my head. Big thanks to my buddy Logan for all the great ideas. He's been helping me quite a bit.

Let me know what places seem rushed. It's not as long as I had wanted, but I just wanted to push something out and say 'hey, story is not dead, I promise.'


	5. Chapter 5

Rasped breathes mingled with the (surprisingly) soothing sounds of rushing sand as everything in the battleground remained still. Sasuke held with bated breath as he tried to figure out what had just transpired.

Gaara was down.

Naruto was down.

Sakura, wherever she was, was injured and unconscious.

Sand was falling, a trinkle at first, cascading into a waterfall of sand within seconds.

And Sasuke still wasn't done.

He stood, hovering, over the unconscious Suna jinchurriki. Madness was practically gleaming in his eyes, as he contemplated his next move.

Every muscle in his body was tensed, beckoning him to dash forward to deliver the final blow while the rational part of his mind (whatever little was left, anyway) was screaming at him to stop, to fight the malicious energy that was rapidly taking control of his body and mind.

In the end, though, his body moved of its own accord.

Blue lightning crackled in his hand as he rushed forward, a threatening cry escaping his lips as he thrusted his palm forward, its intent being the fallen Gaara.

Before he could reach his target, though, an explosion of splinters erupted right in front of his face. With Sasuke's Sharingan spinning wildly, he jumped backward with a snarl as he took stock of the change in front of him.

There stood, standing defiantly in front of their fallen brother, Temari and Kankuro. Kankuro currently had a frown on his features that was magnified by the war paint that was obviously prominent on his face, while Temari had a look of absolutely terror, mingled with shaking rage that contorted her face into an ugly, menacing glare.

"I almost forgot about you two," Sasuke snarled first. His vigorous tone made the Suna sibilings jump lightly, but stood their ground anyway.

"W-we won't let you hurt our brother," came the reply from the puppet wielder. He was astounded that his best puppet was reduced to nothing but splinters, but tried to not let that show in his expression. A chuckle escaped Sasuke's lips, which then turned into a menacing cackle.

"Like you can stop me." Arrogant, yet true.

"I w-will, t-teme," came a faint voice from behind him. Turning with wide eyes, Sasuke brought a shaking hand up to his forehead at the sight of his blond teammate.

Naruto was leaning his right shoulder against the sturdy trunk of a tree. His right arm was clutching his left with white knuckles. What made Sasuke's breath hitch, though, was the fact that the blond's left arm was dangling dangerously, with a faucet of blood trying to escape the clutches of his hand as tried to stop the flow. "D-d-don't give in to that s-snake bastard," he croaked dangerously, feeling his head lighten the more he talked.

"N-Naruto…" Sasuke struggled out through gritted teeth. "I.. I can't.. urg!" He stumbled forward, clutching at his neck as his body shook violently as he attempted to resist the dark energy emitting from his curse mark.

"Fight it, teme," Naruto struggled out, his breath coming in rasps now. "Y-you beat Gaara, now… now beat this… D-don't let Orochimaru win…"

It was at this moment that Temari spoke, obviously confused by this point. "What do you mean, Orochimaru? What on Earth are you talking about?"

While Sasuke struggled with himself, Naruto panted as he lifted his gaze toward them. "Your Kage i-isn't your dad," he was practically whispering at this point. "O-Orochimaru is… the Kazekage…"

And then he fell, darkness encircling him like a cocoon. He muttered out his teammates names before he was swept away by the ocean of black for the second time that day.

* * *

A familiar sea of white was the first thing Naruto saw when he woke. Hospital tiles greeted his blurry eyes as he blinked rapidly to clear his vision, soon becoming unbearably bright.

"Ugh," he moaned, the headache now hitting him like a freight train. He battled it by closing his eyes, but it only made matters worse as the disorientating darkness made him queasy. He quickly opened them again, only this time to take a look around the room.

The sight of his brooding teammate, slouched in a chair to the left of his bed, literally made him go "What the fuck?", which, in turn, woke the Uchiha up with wide eyes as he darted out of the room. Naruto thought he was running from being seen by the blond, like he was embarrassed for being in the hospital room while Naruto recovered, and that thought made his stomach churn in unease.

As quickly as that thought had run through his head, a nurse briskly walked through the door, his eyes also wide at the sight of the blond. 'Why is it so surprising that I'm in here? Stop looking at me like that!'

"Uzumaki," the Nurse said soothingly, having caught the worried look that Naruto was giving him, "it's good to see you up. How are you feeling?"

Naruto tried to answer, but he found his throat abnormally dry. The Nurse noticed this, and quickly grabbed the glass of water that was sitting on a table to his right and told him to sip with moderation.

Pfft. Whatever that meant.

Naruto chugged the water within seconds, much to the chagrin of the nurse. "Like shit," Naruto finally croaked out his answer, which earned a chuckle from someone else within the room.

Naruto swiveled his head toward the source of the noise, only to exclaim, "Kakashi-sensei!", which earned him the cyclops' trademark eye-smile. "W-what happened?"

An ominous silence filled the room, making Naruto frown, and after the nurse checked on the wellbeing of the blond, Sasuke came back, with the Hokage following suite. "Naruto," the Sarutobi greeted.

Naruto brightened considerably at the sight of the Hokage, healthy as could he could be. He let out a sigh of relief. "Jiji!" His appearance made Naruto struggle to sit up in a sitting position on the bed. "What happened? How long have I been out?"

The Hokage sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed, twisting his body so that he was facing Naruto. "Well, Naruto, a lot has happened. There was an invasion, obviously, but thanks to the efforts of you and your teammate, the village still stands." He paused. "As for how long you've been out… it's been a week and a half."

That tidbit of information made Naruto squawk out a 'WHAAAAAT', but before the he could complain any further, Sarutobi called out the elephant in the room. "How are you feeling Naruto?"

Naruto frowned. "I'm okay, I guess." This made everyone else in the room frown. "W-what's wrong? Jiji, why is everyone frowning? What's wrong with me?"

It was heartbreaking instances like these that made Sarutobi hate the position the hat provided. "Naruto… your left arm… can you move it at all?"

"Pfft. Of course, old man, what do you think-" he cut himself off, as he struggled to move his left arm. Nothing happened.

He tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. But the damn thing wouldn't budge. Hell, he could barely feel it as it hung limp and useless at his side. At first, he was afraid that there was nothing there, that there was nothing but a stub, but upon further inspection, he let out a sigh of relief that his arm was still attached to his body, but frowned at the newfound information that he really couldn't move it. "Why can't I move it?" He turned to look at the Hokage, his eyes now full of worry. "Jiji, why can't I move it?"

Out of his peripheral vision, Naruto saw Sasuke stare at him with wide eyes at his proclamation, and visibly cringe at the patheticness of his voice, but he kept his pleading eyes on the Hokage. Hiruzen waved his hand in the air in response.

Seemingly out of nowhere, an ANBU operative materialized out of thin air, kneeling before the Hokage. "Now that his teammate is up, could you escort Sasuke here home? Naruto needs his rest, and there's a few things I'd like to discuss with him in private." He turned to the Uchiha with a small smile. "Thank you for worrying about your teammate. I'll be sure to let you know when Naruto will next accept visitors. Maybe you can get your other teammate – Saukura, was her name, right? – to visit as well."

At this, Sasuke blinked for a moment but nodded in reluctance. He got up, and headed to the door, not before throwing one last glance at Naruto. He was gone the next second, the ANBU hot on his heels.

"Kakashi, if you would be so kind as to fetch my student-"

"Already here, Sensei."

Naruto turned his head (way to fast, he found out; he was dizzy now) toward the new voice in the room, but said nothing. His mind was reeling; was he useless, now? The lack of use in his arm was a huge deal, and the thought that he might not ever get the use back was terrifying to him. The three other adults in the room seemed to notice this, and the newcomer continued to talk.

"Naruto, my name is Jirayia. You may know me as the one of the legendary Sannin, or the toad sage. Any way, I specialize in fuuinjutsu, and chakra theory in general." Jirayia took a deep breath before continuing, running a hand through his long, white hair.

"You know of the Kyuubi you contain, right?" Naruto nodded warily. "Okay, good. I don't know how much you know about Bijuu chakra, but it's toxic, less so for the host, though. You obviously know that the redheaded kid, Gaara, is also a jinchuuriki. He managed to let out the Shikaku back in the woods, there, when you and Sasuke were battling him, full power. I'm still amazed that you two managed to defeat him. It's crazy. You two make a seriously scary combination-"

"Jirayia, focus," Hiruzen warned.

"Right. Well, when you two were fighting – this is all from what your teammate told us, or from what he remembered – Shikaku managed to hit you full-on with a high-end wind Jutsu. Under normal circumstances, your arm probably should have been blown clean off-" Naruto visibly winced at this- "but because you house the Kyuubi, the Bijuu that is known for its regenerative powers, it started healing the moment your arm was hit. Now, that wouldn't be such a big problem normally, but you also used some chakra to escape the aftermath of the hit, the Kawarimi, and unconsciously fed some of the Kyuubi's chakra into your arm. Not surprised, considering how my teammate probably messed up your chakra pathways back in the second exam. Sasuke said before he bit him, Oro used some technique on your stomach right?" Naruto nodded. "We'll fix that later.

What that technique did was mess with your chakra pathways, and made it so that chakra control would be much harder for you to do, and forces you to use more chakra than necessary. Way more. Anyway. You unconsciously used the Kyuubi's chakra since your supply was short, and I'm not entirely sure what happened, but the mix wasn't something pleasant. Whatever happened, it ruptured the chakra coils in your left arm. Probably took some nerves with it, too, but we can probably get that back in time. Medical shinobi are remarkable like that."

"W-what does that mean for me?" Naruto finally asked, his voice wavering and his eyes threatening to spill should the Sannin give him the answer he was expecting.

Jirayia frowned. "What does it mean? Well, you probably won't be able to push chakra into your left arm anymore. So, no more ninjutsu. Though, from what I hear, you're able to do the Shadow Clone Jutsu and the Hidden Mist Jutsu – though how, I'll never know – with one hand. Which is remarkable, if you ask me. So you still have that. And Zabuza's sword."

Kakashi's eye went wide at the last tidbit of information. "Naruto, you have what now?"

Jirayia chuckled and waved his hand dismissively at him. "We'll brief you later." He turned his attention to Naruto, who was currently frowning something fierce at his left arm, which was limp at his side. "So since you can't do any more ninjutsu besides those two, you have a few options. Option one: specialize in something else. You aren't too bad with a sword, from what everyone is telling me, but probably wouldn't make above a Chuunin or Special Jonin with no jutsu in your repertoire. You could try fuuinjutsu. That doesn't take much chakra to use, so you could probably even make due with using your left arm to use low-tier seals. It's difficult, mind you, but possible." He turned serious at his final proclamation. "Or you could roll over, wallow in your own self-pity and give up."

Naruto looked up at him, shock and awe spilling out of his eyes. "So you're saying… I can still be a shinobi? I can still protect…" he trailed off, tears threatening to spill out of his eyes.

The toad sage crossed his arms. "If you work hard enough, anything is possible. But nothing is possible if you give up. Now, what kind of person are you?"

Naruto's teary, foxy grin seemed to answer for itself.

"Good. Now, about that seal. This might hurt a little…"

* * *

Sarutobi sighed to himself, allowing himself to ignite the tobacco in his pipe and take a long, hearty drag, glad to be back in the confines of his office. His peaceful place.

This whole situation was a mess. It was very fortunate that they suspected an attack early on, but the casualties (which was mostly cosmetic damage throughout the village) was starting to add up and become costly. Thankfully, after Suna learned that their Kage was Orochimaru in disguise, offered to pay majority of the damages as compensation for their actions. He accepted that immediately; he'd be a fool not to.

There was no held grudge against the nation for what they did. Their economy was no better off, and it was only a matter of time before they did something drastic as this to try and up their money intake.

It just so happened that Konoha was one of the wealthiest Hidden Villages out there.

Thoughts of Naruto echoed through his mind like a bad dream, and he couldn't help but frown over the stem of his pipe as it lay rigid and hard against his bottom lip. While Hiruzen was ecstatic that Naruto and his team came out in victory against the Bijuu, he couldn't help but feel responsible for what happened to the blond.

He remembered Naruto, at first knowledge of the news, and the lost look in his eyes. But after Jirayia scolded the kid for thinking of giving up, he offered to teach him all he knew about the art of seals. That and coupling with the fact that Naruto still had his Kenjutsu to fall back on (he really only needed one arm for that) Naruto could still be a worthy ninja.

A Hokage level ninja, though? He honestly wasn't sure anymore.

He did definitely have a ton of potential, though, that much he couldn't deny.

His thoughts of Naruto shifted to the unexpected visits of Itachi and Kisame back on the rooftop. At first, he was in shock that those two actively trained Naruto the way that they did. As much as he trusted Itachi, he couldn't help but feel that there was some other ulterior motive other than 'they wanted to'.

They were supposed to be trying to kidnap him, for Kami's sake.

"You should really stop smoking, old man. It'll kill you one day."

Hiruzen looked casually to his left at the smiling Jirayia sitting on the windowsill. "I'm old, I'll be dying soon enough anyway. Might as well enjoy some of life's pleasures while doing so," he retorted with another long drag before exhaling the smoke through his nostrils. The smoke billowed forward, encasing the office in a smokey, cozey atmosphere that the Sarutobi absolutely loved.

Plus, the tobacco was cherry flavored. Who didn't like the smell of cherries?

"Right," he snorted. He jumped down from his spot on the window and took a seat in front of his former sensei.

Silence engulfed the pair as they sat, one smoking their tobacco while the other just stared at the monument out the window he just came in from. "Quite the mess that Naruto found himself in," Jirayia said, finally breaking the silence.

A grim nod was his response. "Indeed. I knew Itachi kept in contact with you through these years, but I never thought this situation would ever happen. I'm worried about those two. Will their defections bring more attention to Konoha? Will Naruto be an even greater target because of this? I'm sure the last thing the Akatsuki want is Naruto being strong enough to defeat their S-rank ninja."

"All valid points," Jiraiya murmured. "And all possible. Those two were some of the best in the group, losing them definitely hurt. Especially Kisame; he's the only one who can render Bijuu chakra basically useless with his sword."

A grunt was the Hokage's reply. "A lot of people will question Naruto and his sudden spike in skill. He had a month to prepare, and he became more than adequate with that cleaver of his in such a small amount of time. People will eventually ask questions."

"We can blame the Shadow Clone technique," Jiraiya offered. "You know the properties of that jutsu.

"But then there's the point that he, 'somehow', got possession of one of the Seven Swords from the Mist. That thing won't stay wrapped up forever, and some of his genin teammates already know about it. They've seen it. Apparently – from what my sources tell me – that thing was basically made for that kid. It's crazy."

The Hokage hummed in thought. "That is a bit of a situation. Should the current Kiri get knowledge of this, they would demand the sword back. Knowing Naruto, though, that won't happen."

"And that would escalate a bad relationship with Kiri as a result. I mean, it isn't required to give the sword back to them, but it is still in ill taste. We can't handle another enemy, especially one as tough as the Bloody Mist," Jiraiya sighed, running calloused fingers through his spiky (though pleasantly silky smooth) white hair. "Losing it would be a waste. That kid is something else with that thing. It's all he's got, at this point, until he learns advanced sealing."

Again, silence fell between the two elders. It wasn't awkward, no, more like tense as the two held each other's gaze, both trying to come up with something to help their current situation.

"Maybe we could help Kiri with this," Jiraiya said suddenly. Hiruzen, knowing his student's mannerisms, stayed silent, allowing the Sannin to collect his thoughts properly. Mulling the details in his head, trying to find any fault in his logic.

He found none.

"Kiri's been suffering from a civil war for a while now. Nearly a quarter of it's population are fully against the Bloody Mist, while many others are just too scared to act against them. Eradicating bloodlines, fucking morons.

Regardless, this could work in our favor. We have a tentative treaty with Suna, thanks to their invasion, and almost zero other allies. What if I go with the boy to Kiri and help out the rebellion? Maybe send supplies every once in a while to help aid their army-"

"-so that when they take their nation back over, we'll be under good terms with the new Mizukage." Hiruzen finished for him, nodding his head slowly in appreciation. He fixed his pipe to his mouth yet again and gave it a hard puff, mulling the idea over around in his head while his student watched on expectantly.

Yes, this could very well work.

He cleared his throat, watching with mild amusement as the tobacco smoke made its way out of any orifice on his face. "Tentative allies with suna," he reiterated. "They would be vulnerable as well, during these times. Even more so, in fact. They need any ally they can get, should any of the other great nations come knocking on their doorstep. We get reparations from them, and send them to the cause in Kiri. We aid them, overthrow the Bloody Mist and make it under normal supremacy, and we have a strong ally with Kirigakure and a tentative ally in Sunakagure. This could work very well in our favor."

Jiraiya only nodded. "Are you really sure about this, though? We're basically doing this just for Naruto. The experience he could get from the other swordsmen of the mist could very well make him as formidable as them, maybe even more so. The kid's got fucking potential coming out his ears."

The Hokage nodded only once. "I am tired of forsaking this boy. I am tired of disgracing Minato by not properly taking care of him the way he wanted. I've failed them both on more than one occasion.

At least this way, we can help the village while we help him." Hiruzen stood, causing his student to stand at attention as well. "I will call for an emergency counsel meeting. If this happens, it happens today."

* * *

Naruto sat on his hospital bed, crosslegged with his tongue sliding out of his mouth, as he delicately wrote Kanjii over and over again on the scroll on his lap. It was the first thing that Jirayia had told him to do should he start practicing Fuuinjutsu; being able to perfect his Kanji strokes would help fantastically in the long run. Intricate seals would mean nothing if the strokes were even the slightest off.

It was one of the reasons why the art of sealing was so rare to begin with; the patience to the art and the dangers scared most shinobi off, and the few that remained were stuck on the level that they were at with no real tutelage to help them progress.

There are 10 levels of sealing the shinobi world, Naruto learned, ranging from zero to ten. According to the pervy sage, anyway. Zero was the total beginning level, made for the writing of Kanji and perfecting writing in general. After that was mastered, basic seals made up level one, all the way to level three, before more intricate and advanced seals were introduced, which made up level four through six.

After level six, though, things sort of died down. That was where most shinobi who specialize in sealing lay, forever stuck in sealing purgatory. Jiraiya explained that it was because most didn't know how to move past this point, as it was damn hard to learn on one's own, but he was promised to be shown should he make it that far.

With how Naruto planned to use Shadow Clones to help speed him along, the boy was hoping it wouldn't take very long.

Even if his left arm was useless and he wasn't allowed to use jutsu because of it, Naruto would use the hell out of the two jutsu he did know with one hand.

And who knows? Maybe fuuinjutsu could help him more than he thought.

The blond frowned as he sensed what felt like a blanket of spider webs laying on him. He glanced up and wasn't surprised to see Itachi and Kisame standing at the foot of his bed, the latter grinning like always fucking was.

"Ey, pipsqueak," Kisame spoke up, "looks like your fight didn't go so well. What's the damage?"

Naruto frowned, but told him anyway. "Uh. Our Bijuu chakra intertwined in my left arm after he attacked and basically obliterated my chakra coils, apparently. Nerve damage, too, so I can barely move it let alone use jutsu."

The shark man frowned, then stepped away. "Ah, damn. Well, it was a nice run kid, huh? I would have bet money you would have won that stupid tournament."

"What the hell do you mean, 'it's been a nice run'?!" He yelled, suddenly not caring if anyone should hear him, "I'm not even close to being done yet! I'm not dead, you stupid walking sushi! And I don't plan on backing off from our deal, either! That's my ninja way, I don't go back on my word. Believe it!"

"Who are you calling a walking sushi, brat?! Come over here and see who eats who-"

"Kisame." The blue man was stopped as Itachi took a step forward, finally coming into the conversation. Kisame bared his teeth at Naruto and huffed angrily before plopping himself down on the cushioned seat behind him, crossing his arms in an effort to show that he didn't particularly care anymore.

"We stopped by to see how your fight with Gaara went. Apologies for your arm, but it is admirable that you still strive to fight onward. It is commendable."

Naruto waved his good hand dismissively at the Uchiha in the room. "It's whatever. I'm the worlds most unpredictable Ninja, there's nothing but death that can stop me!"

"Right." Itachi allowed a pause before getting right back to business. "What plans do you have now, after you are released from the hospital?"

Naruto blanched. "Eh? I don't know. Getting used to battling with one arm, probably." Even though Itachi was stoic, Naruto could practically feel his 'deadpan' expression, his face reading 'that's now what I meant'. "Oh, you mean- oh! Okay. Uhm. I don't know? Maybe-"

"He's going on a training trip with me," a familiar voice explained from the window. Jiraiya jumped down with ample grace, grinning broadly at the two visitors as they tensed something fierce. "Relax, fellas, I knew you were here. Not many people can conjure up a Genjutsu like Itachi, here. Judging how Naruto here is still breathing, I'm guessing you just wanted to talk to him before you head off, eh?"

Naruto blanched at the perv and then back at the missing nin duo, completely ignoring the information regarding him going away on a training trip. "You're leaving? Where are you guys going?"

"Kiri," Kisame said at once, grinning once again. "There's some shit going on there that I feel obligated to help out. Since me and Itachi here have a new goal in mind, helping a corrupt nation get uncorrupt sounds like a good place to start. You know, get a good name for ourselves and everything."

"What's going on in Kiri?"

The three adults in the room just started dumbly at the blond. "Is he serious?" Kisame asked, looking at both Itachi and Jiraiya.

Jiraiya eventually waved Naruto off. "I'll lecture you later during our trip."

"Yeah, about that, do I get a say in anything here, pervy sage?"

Kisame roared out in laughter, slapping his knee and hunching as his body rock from his giggles. "Oh man, now THAT'S a nickname!"

Naruto scrunched his nose and fired back a 'shaddup, sharky', before turning back to his pervert of a sensei. Jiraiya hung his head in shame, before answering Naruto's question. "No. We leave as soon as you're released from this place. The quicker we leave, the better."

"And where exactly are we going?"

"I already told you, we're going on a training trip!" Jiraiya grinned ear to ear, waiting for Naruto to get worked up about him dodging the question.

To his surprise, though, Naruto just shrugged and went with it. "So… I won't be able to see any of my friends before I leave? How long will we be gone?"

Jiraiya frowned. "I can send for them to come visit you here before you leave, but we really need to go as soon as you're able." A pause. "And for a long time. Until you can hold your own against me, anyway."

Naruto gulped. Despite joking about the elder man all the time, Naruto knew the power behind him, and respected that fact. He was strong, stronger than any person in this village, rivaling even the Hokage at this point in time, probably. "R-right."A pause. "And you can send for them to come here and visit? When can they come?"

"Boy, I'm Jiraiya, I can ask anyone to do anything I want."

* * *

So here's a 'what happened after' chapter. I plan on building on some stuff next chapter, and again, I wrote this one a few times before I came to something I felt was adequate.

You might not like Naruto not being able to use his left arm, and by default jutsu in general (besides shadow clone and hidden in mist), but I really wanted to stretch the importance of Zabuza's sword. I won't make him some ninjutsu god right away, things take time. And I have some ideas with fuuinjutsu to come into play as well.

Will Naruto get chakra back in his arm ever? No. He won't.

Please, I can't stress this enough, review. Let me know what you think and what you think I should work on. I had so much trouble with this chapter.

Also, sorry it took so long. College and shit, you know.


	6. Chapter 6

The sun shone brightly against the stark contrast of black, slick hair that spiked neatly upwards. Sparing a glance upwards revealed a cloudless sky, blue and beautiful hovering over the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

The village was surprisingly hopeful, despite the recent events that transpired. Of all the damage that occurred, the worst of it happened at the arena, which was almost ultimately destroyed since it was basically the epicenter of the battle. Homes and other buildings like the school and hospital were targeted, and while most damage was avoided, some damage managed to slip through the defenses.

It was mostly cosmetic; very few buildings were deemed uninhabitable and forced the owners to leave until further notice. The rest of the cosmetic damages were assigned as D-rank missions to help boost the economy after such a drastic turn of events. Since the Chuunin exams were unable to provide currency, this would have to suffice in its stead.

Sasuke, for one, was reluctant to get out of the Uchiha district. Because of his endeavors with the Suna jinchuuriki and the gossip that inevitably goes around the shinobi forces, he was being hailed as a savior.

Truthfully? Sasuke wanted none of it. He loathed the fact that he was getting more attention than normal. Sure, being the last of such a prestigious clan had its perks and was obviously well-liked by pretty much everyone, but the fact that he was getting all this recognition just irked him to no end.

Some part of his mind blamed his loud-mouth teammate. His modest demeanor about his approach to helping everyone was rubbing off on him. Initially, all he wanted was to beat his worthy opponent like he was supposed to in the tournament. Selfish, he knew, but it was what he wanted. What he truly desired.

Then Sakura showed up and got herself trapped behind a hand of sand, silently pressing her until her body was flat and dead. He fought, then, to save her. His teammate.

Naruto then showed and went toe-to-toe with the psycho Suna ninja, and, surprisingly, actually held his own during the beginning phases of his transformation. And Sasuke was useless, hindered by Orochimaru and the goddamn seal on his neck that threatened to spill out should he falter mentally in any way.

But the kicker? Sasuke felt sick to his stomach at the thought of using his curse seal to help his teammate. Not because he didn't want to appear weak to Naruto, no, but because he was afraid that he would hurt him in such a state.

Did he really cherish his teammates? He battled for himself, only himself. But why, then, did he try so hard to protect the both of them when they were in harms way?

Did he… actually care about them?

He swore to isolation, to himself and only himself, in order to conjure the amount of hate needed to defeat his brother.

But the fact that he obtained so much more strength through willpower to protect rather than for revenge or hate, really messed up his ideals. It made him second guess himself in regards to his means to get revenge for his clan.

Naruto being injured only added icing to the hypothetical cake. Sasuke saw it as being his fault for the boy being injured, despite his best efforts to protect him, and saw to it that he would be there when Naruto woke up.

"Sasuke!"

Said boy stopped in his tracks, finding himself standing in the middle of the street with his hands touching the bottom of his shorts pockets. Blinking once, twice, three times, he turned around toward the source of his name and found himself – against his will – relaxing at the sight of his pink haired teammate running to catch up with him.

Sakura jogged to a halt, bringing her hands forward to play with them in front of her while she spoke. "Are you… going to see Naruto today? Kakashi-sensei said today might be the only day we could, for whatever reason."

The lone Uchiha nodded after a moments pause. Sakura smiled brightly. "Do you… want to come with me? We can see him together."

"Sure." Curt, clipped, to the point. Something she was used to. She only nodded and began walking beside her teammate, who started at the same time as she did. Two steps, in tandem with one another.

Silence engulfed them both as they walked, before Sasuke dropped the bomb that has been exploding in his head since she arrived. "I think Naruto is crippled."

Sakura gasped, mouth agape in shock. "W-what? What do you mean?"

"Just as I said," he replied to her dismay. "I was there when he woke up. The Hokage and the legendary Jiraiya of the Sannin were there, too. Jiraiya asked Naruto to move his left arm and he just… couldn't." A sigh. Did it sound frustrated? Sakura couldn't tell. "They ushered me out before I could hear anything else."

"Oh, no," she whispered, clutching her hands to her chest. She looked crestfallen, absolute horror portraying on her young face. "This is… this is all my fault-"

"Stop, Sakura," he said, voice stern and expression serious (well, as serious as an Uchiha could muster). "None of this is your fault. This is Orochimaru's fault. You got caught by a superior opponent, one that I couldn't even beat."

"But I thought-"

"No," he cut her off, eyes piercing hers with a warm, ferocious gaze, "it wasn't just me. How do you think Naruto got so injured? I may have delivered the final blow, but he was the one to get Gaara to the breaking point like he did. I couldn't even touch him, but Naruto was _beating_ him." His voice was pitched, now, no longer monotone as he had always tried to portray. "He stopped me from doing things the curse mark was trying to get me to do. He snapped me out of it. I barely did anything. I kept telling myself that I could have done better, but I couldn't. I did all I could.

So no, Sakura, it's not your fault. If anyone's to blame, it's Orochimaru. That bastard deserves a fate worse than Hell, if you ask me."

Stunned, Sakura could do nothing else but stare with wide eyes at her long-time crush. Who was this man? The Sasuke she knew would have never admitted his own weakness. It was like the mission back in Wave country; he jumped in front of Naruto during their fight with Haku and took the blow for Naruto.

Sasuke fidgeted under her surprised gaze and promptly turned back in front of him. "We're almost at the hospital," was all he said before he started to walk again.

A small smile played onto the pinkette's lips. Was that Sasuke trying to be consoling? _'Too cute!'_

* * *

"Oh man, I am so bored of doing the same strokes over and over and over and over again! Is there any other exercise we can do? Literally anything else?"

Jiraiya slapped his forehead and sighed, counting to ten before he slapped the boy upside the head. "No, Naruto, there's no shortcut for fuuinjutsu. Stop your complaining and keep at it. Your calligraphy looks a lot better than it did yesterday. Much more consistant."

The blond just sighed in defeat before lifting the pen, dipping it in the jar of ink that lay on the makeshift table sprawled across his lap, flipping his notebook to a new page, and starting again.

It was several minutes before his hand jerked at the sound of a series of knocks rapping against his hospital door. Jiraiya saw this and sighed. "I told you to stay concentrated, Naruto. You can't allow distractions to hinder you when doing seals. One slip could kill you." Ignoring the jests from his student, the toad sage strode over to the door and opened it.

"On second thought, brat, take a break. You have visitors."

Naruto immediately froze and swiveled his head toward the door, his mouth lifting to his genuine grin that he always wore. It was like the sun; bright, always bringing warmth wherever he went.

"Sasuke! Sakura!" The two entered, and without saying anything, Jiraiya slipped out past them and closed the door to ensure their privacy.

"Hey there, Naruto," Sakura greeted. Sasuke only grunted in greeting, something that Naruto was wholeheartedly expecting. "How's the hospital treating you?"

The blond frowned. "Alright. Pretty boring, mostly. Jiraiya has me practicing my calligraphy to help prepare for my training in fuuinjutsu."

"Why would you be studying fuuinjutsu?" Sakura immediately regretted her question. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Oh, right, you don't know." Sakura and Sasuke payed attention to the tone in his voice, going from genuinely happy to insecure and timid. "During the fight with Gaara, he did a technique on me that miffed up my arm pretty bad. Something weird happened, it's hard to explain," he quickly added, forgetting that they didn't know of the tenant he held deep in his gut, "but from what Jiraiya told me, the chakra coils in my left arm are obliterated. I'm lucky to be able to move it, if anything, but that hasn't happened yet."

Sasuke only nodded his head and Sakura found herself spilling a few tears. "Don't worry about me, guys," Naruto quickly added, his tone becoming yet again its normal chipper self, "I'll get even stronger, believe it. This won't hold me back, no way."

"Fuuinjutsu, huh?" Sauske smirked, crossing his arms in his normal snarky demeanor. "How'd Jiraiya convince you of that?"

And so they talked, the conversation awkward at first but eventually progressed into something that seemed normal to Team 7. Kakashi watched on in silence, silently proud of his cute little genin.

Their time ran on and the light that once shone outside the simple window that endowed his room faded, much like the conversation. They ended up catching up about everything within the few hours they visited and ran out of topics to discuss.

Eventually, Sakura excused herself thanks to said dusk sneaking past the window panes. Sasuke and Naruto said their farewells, much to the confusion of Sakura. She was sure that Sasuke would be leaving with her, but she shrugged and dismissed it as 'guy talk'.

Whatever that was.

Once the door was closed, Naruto looked onto Sasuke with a serious expression, with the Uchiha doing much of the same. "I said we would talk later," Sasuke said simply, allowing himself to sit on a cushiony chair that was nearby and gaining the unnerving attention from his teammate whilst qurking a curious eyebrow. "It's later."

Naruto snorted at his sheer bluntness, but nodded along nonetheless. "Alright. Shoot."

"Why did you have Zabuza's sword?"

The blond nodded once before falling silent, allowing his brain to produce the desired answer.

In his case, he had to come up with a convincing lie. Against an Uchiha, no less.

"You know the red tile sub-district in the marketplace?" The Uchiha nodded an affirm; he knew about it, but never personally shopped there. It was full of usually shady characters with either overpriced or cheap as fuck items that may or may not be good or bad quality. It was a gamble, really.

Seeing his nod, Naruto continued. "That's usually where I get most of my stuff. Since I was an orphan, actually. My allowance that we're given in compensation for us living by ourselves isn't much, so I have to make due with cheaper things. I shop there all the time, especially for clothes and weapons. Especially weapons.

"They claim they find shuriken and kunai in the oddest places, especially in their travels." Sasuke nodded in understanding; he couldn't count the amount of kunai and shuriken he had to replace because they were used in combat and forgotten about, so the logic made sense. It would be easy for a civilian to find them, especially after a larger skirmish, and profit from used but still decent weapons.

"Anyway. Old habits die hard, and I've never had a problem with buying hand-me-down weapons to begin with since they get lost more often than not anyway, so I was there buying weapons and supplies and things. Got some good deals, too," he grinned for a moment before getting serious again.

"They usually sell the best stuff last, you know, 'best for last' or whatever. And I saw it, Zabuza's sword, just sitting on the auctioning podium. They guy didn't even know what he had laying there. He thought he found a useless cleaver and bid for it cheap. Nobody wanted it 'cause of the size of the thing.

"At first I wasn't sure if it was actually his or not, but I thought for sure it was. So I bought it." The blond shrugged. "Turned out it was."

"Just like that?" Sasuke quirked an eyebrow, obviously suspicious of his story.

"Just like that," he repeated.

Sasuke took a moment to mull over the newfound information. His story made sense, and during his explanation Naruto didn't make any facial expressions that he could deduce to be false, but he couldn't help but have the nagging feeling that he wasn't being truthful.

Call it... Uchiha intuition.

He decided to let it go for now.

"Why does it glow the way it does with you? It stayed like a normal sword when Zabuza wielded it."

"That's easy," Naruto said, sitting a little straighter, looking almost prideful. It was rare that the Uzumaki could lecture an Uchiha about topics that he didn't know much about. "Jiraiya explained it pretty well." It was Kisame, acutally, but what's another white lie? "The Seven Swordmen of the Mist have legendary swords that are actually sentient. It's crazy, I know, but the sealing they have on it make it its own being. They choose the wielder like the wielder chooses the blade. It didn't want Zabuza, it never did. That's why it was just plain when he held it, and heavy. It didn't matter, though, because Zabuza was built like a fucking lion.

"When I held it, though, it felt like it had chakra, and it entered my chakra system. At first I thought it was bad, but my body kind of… accepted it, and it accepted mine. And I guess that's why it has all these weird blue glowing markings on the edges of it. And why it's so light for me, too. It's like I'm holding a regular katana, believe it!"

Sasuke digested this information and nodded again. It made sense, though he couldn't fathom on why it would choose an idiot like Naruto. He could only surmise it on the idiot's dumb luck.

It was at this time he let out a sigh and fired off the last question that was nagging in his mind. One look out the window showed the complete lack of light; they have been talking all the way into the night. Naruto probably needed to rest, anyway. "How did you get so strong in a month? It's impossible."

"Wrong," Naruto's grin threatened to split his face in two. Oh how he loved to prove the Uchiha wrong. "You know my shadow clone technique?" A nod. "Well, I didn't realize it at first, but one of the properties of it makes the original me get the information back from the clone once its dispelled. It's crazy useful, especially in training."

"So that includes muscle memory." It wasn't a question, more like a statement. Naruto nodded with the same dumb grin plastered on his face.

Sasuke sat in silence for a moment before standing. "It's dark," he clipped, and headed for the door. "I should be going."

"Wait."

Sasuke stopped and looked over his shoulder. Naruto breathed out his nose for a moment and desperately tried to find the right words. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but I wanted to tell you and Sakura. I couldn't find the right time…"

"Get on with it, dobe."

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there," came the snapping reply. Naruto breathed to regain his composure. "I'm leaving the village for a while, tomorrow. A long while. I'm not supposed to tell anyone. I can't say why, but I just wanted you guys to know."

"How long?"

"I don't know. A long time."

As vague as it was, an answer was still an answer. A long moment passed, and Naruto waited with bated breath, before Sasuke smirked and turned back around, facing the door again. "Then you better get stronger when you come back. If you can't put up a decent fight against me with that limp arm of yours, I'll send you right back until you can."

Naruto lit up like a Christmas tree. "Bring it, teme! I only need one arm to deal with you!"

* * *

The next day didn't bode well for their travels. It was cloudy, looking almost like it should rain at any given moment. The wind blew, creating a biting chill that stuck around in the air.

Naruto, being the superstitious knucklehead he was, took it as a bad omen.

"Shut it, brat," Jiraiya sighed, shrugging the large backpack over his shoulder, "you're being too superstitious. We only just left and you're already annoying me."

There was no seeing off party, no sentimental goodbyes. It was a quiet affair that only the two front gate Chuunin knew about, and even then they were told it was a hush-hush affair.

The two met up, sensei and student, at the gate with all their necessary provisions stored in scrolls that filled their backpacks, asked the two Chuunin to stamp their passports for the records, and went on their way.

"Are we meeting Sharky and Crow at all?" Naruto asked flippantly, following in step beside his sensei. Despite him acting the fool all the time, even he knew not to use Itachi's and Kisame's names out in the open like this. There could be anyone and everyone eavesdropping on them, especially since he was with one of the Sannin. The bounty on the older pervert was damn high.

"They said they'd meet us in Kiri. It's a long journey ahead of us, brat, and before you ask, we'll be taking our time. I want you to keep up with your calligraphy until I say it's perfect, and then we can start seal training for real."

"And then I can use my clones to speed it up?"

Jiraiya frowned and nodded reluctantly. The old Sannin stressed the importance for the real Naruto to focus on his calligraphy, so that he 'understood and accepted the amount of work needed to make sure all strokes and lines and edges were perfect. Not just good, not great, perfect.'

After he got passed that, though, Naruto was promised free reign on the use of his clones to speed up his sealing training. Of course, he could only create a few at a time because of his newfound handicap, but still, it was better than nothing.

"Alright then, old man, where's our first stop?"

"Who knows?" He smirked back a response, watching with mild amusement as Naruto shrugged at the cryptic answer and falling silent yet again.

The rest of the day's travel was uneventful; excluding idle conversation, the trip was quiet and, to Naruto's surprise, pleasant.

At one point the blond had asked if this was the pace that Jiraiya usually kept, and the pervy sage nodded an affirm. 'It's better this way. There would be too many towns and villages that I could miss if I had tree-hopped all around the elemental nations, and that's potential leads from my spy network that I'm missing'.

All in all, it was actually relaxing.

When the sky began to darken, Jiraiya finally called for them to stop and set up camp. Naruto didn't complain at his job to make the tents; it only took him a few moments, anyway, while Jiraiya scribbled in his notebook.

At first Naruto thought it was sealing notes he was writing, but soon found out the hard way (he read an entire page worth of smut, and for a young boy, the particular scene he read was _intense_ ) that he never wanted to know what he was writing ever again. The pervert only laughed at his reaction, calling it priceless.

Naruto finally managed to finish his calligraphy lessons that night. Jiraiya called him a natural for it, but considering who his parents were, the Sannin wasn't surprised in the least. Naruto, of course, beamed at his progress and earnestly asked him to begin the level one exercises, and since it was still early in the night and they didn't have to be up early for any particular reason, Jiraiya agreed, honestly glad at the boy's interest in the nearly lost art.

He found the boy soaked up the information like a sponge, understanding the basic principles of sealing rather easily, and he wasn't even using his clones yet to help help him progress.

Finally, after Jiraiya deemed it late enough, he ordered the kid to pack up his sealing kit and hit the sack.

Naruto was, surprisingly, very okay with sleeping the night away. He thought he had finally made good progress, despite still being only in the beginner's level of sealing. As much as he hated to admit it, the old perv was right in installing calligraphy into his brain first; it really was as important as claimed it to be. Then again, he wasn't called a seal expert for nothing.

After putting away his supplies, Naruto lay his head down and covered himself from the chill of night. Despite all that had happened to him, he fell asleep with his lips raised slightly upward, smiling a content, true smile.

* * *

The next day was much of the same. They woke up earlier than they had originally planned, despite the late night studies, and made good time on their travels.

Upon Jiraiya's request, they stopped at a few towns for provisions and things to stock up on, as well as to check his spy network. Naruto remembered the gleam in his eye when he mentioned his 'spy network'; if he didn't know any better, he would have thought the pervert was going to be the pervert he was.

Not that Naruto minded; he was glad he was given the chance to roam around town after town, taking in the sights of the Fire Country.

Naruto enjoyed shopping the most of all. Back in Konoha, it was no secret that he was being overpriced in just about everything he needed to buy, anything from clothes to weapons to food.

In these towns, however, everything was cheaper than he could ever dream, and the fact that he was a shinobi (he still wore his Konoha headband) he even got offers for discounts on more than one occasion. Of course he declined, but still, it made his world every time it happened.

In one instance, Naruto showed up at their designated rendezvous point wearing a deep red ankle-long coat that had dark blue (almost black) trim going down the middle front, where the fabric split open in order to shrug on. The only thing holding the garmet closed was a wide double belt snug at the waist; the piece of garment was void of any buttons or zippers. The sleeves were loose, and Naruto had even allowed his still-limp arm to dangle in front if him, allowing the belt to support its weight as it rested there, bent and comfortable. No matter how much he moved, his arm stayed put, much to his pleasure.

The collar of the coat was the same color as the trim, and was long and uniform all around, coming up to just above his chin in length. At first it was a nuisance, but in time the blond didn't seem to mind it too much.

Jiraiya seemed pleased at his student's choice in attire. It was quite the contrast from his old orange jumpsuit that he was told so much about, and was so glad that the boy was experimenting in his clothing. He couldn't imagine having to put up with the bright orange all the time.

It also felt nostalgic, in a way. His old student, the Yondaime Hokage, chose his own cloak/coat that was pure white with red flames adorning the bottom. The two definitely had similar taste, and was only fitting that the boy chose red as his color of choice; the color his mother definitely preferred, even if he didn't know it yet.

Both cloaks, of his former and current student, were light and breathable. Naruto was even more excited once he found a belt that could be slung across his chest to hold his giant cleaver. It really completed the attire. It was made with a special seal (Naruto was giddy at the thought of doing stuff like this when he was more proficient) that allowed the user to infuse their chakra with the holster and the item, so that said item could simply stick to the holster, no sheathe necessary.

He still kept it wrapped, but once their business in Kiri was done, he hoped the blond would let it breathe freely. The cleaver really did look badass, especially with the chakra markings that adorned the edges.

If you got it, flaunt it, the old pervert always said (with a giggle, he might add).

Soon the found themselves nearing the border of Fire Country, which earned a warning from the elder ninja. "No more leaving you alone," he said with a serious look, "we're almost out of Fire Country. It'll be more dangerous from here on, so we'll be sticking together. You'll see some of my spy network, but that can't be helped. I don't think you'll be blabbing anything you see to anyone, right?"

Naruto caught the unspoken threat, and swallowed. "R-right."

Of course, Naruto trained; his kata's were better, now, even without the weight of his left arm. It unbalanced him at first, but he learned to cope with it and worked around his 'disability'. All he needed now was experience to refine his skills and polish it into diamond, so to speak.

His fuuinjutsu was coming along quite nicely as well. Despite being on the road for only a few weeks, he had already mastered the first level and was working his way onto the second. This time it was much more difficult to grasp, with more and more complicated arrays and concepts being thrown his way.

He definitely utilized his clones a lot more, and boy did it help.

Currently, they were aboard a ship that left from the Wave village to Water Country. Much to Naruto's chagrin, Jiraiya decided to not allow Naruto to see his old friends back in Wave; they didn't need any unnecessary people recognizing them, especially when they tried to hard to keep a low profile.

Speaking of low profile, Naruto was instructed to put away his Konoha headband and store it away. Of course, being the hothead he was, Naruto profusely refused, but upon the inevitable lecture that Jiraiya gave him, conceded and did as he was told.

"I don't get it!" Naruto growled out in frustration, slamming the brush to the table with a loud 'snap'. "This example doesn't make any sense! There's a double resister array coming from a shadow array! Why are there _two_ resister arrays when there only needs to be _one_ resister array and _one_ function array? There's so much more you can do with having both!"

Jiraiya listened to the boy and hummed. "While that's true for some cases, do you know exactly what this seal is for?"

Naruto blanched, and gritted his teeth before lowering his head and rechecking the seal. "Didn't think so," the pervert laughed before going back to scribbling in his notebook.

The seal Naruto was looking at was a common seal used for security, allowing the user to know who comes in and out of certain parameters. It was a tricky example, one of the harder level two concepts to wrap their head around, but he had faith that his student can overcome it.

Like he said before, the kid has potential coming out the ears.

* * *

Metal clashed against metal, sparks flying in a randomly scattered pattern as the two material came forward to meet again in another 'ting'ing clash.

Two ninja jumped backwards to ready themselves before racing forward for another attack. This time, metal was not met with metal; instead, one of the blades found themselves slicing through open air as its target disappeared from sight.

The Uchiha let out a 'tch' and jumped up and away from the attack he knew was coming from under the Earth beneath him. He then performed a series of hand seals in rapid succession and brought his hand to his mouth in an 'o', blowing hot flames at his intended target.

He wasn't expecting any of them to hit, of course; his opponent was much, much stronger than him. But that didn't mean his sensei would go easy on him, either.

A bird chirped, followed by a flock of birds, then hundreds, then thousands. The sound was deafening, and Sasuke had no way to know where the sound was coming from; it was as though it was coming from every direction, all at once. Blue light surrounded him, too much light, impossibly too much light, and he after the realization struck he grunted out a 'kai' before bringing his arms up in a cross to shield himself from the fist directed at the center of his face.

"Better, Sasuke, but that genjutsu was on you for ten seconds before you realized it. You can't always count on your Sharingan to use during a fight."

And he was right. More times than Sasuke'd like to admit he found himself lacking the chakra reserves to keep his Sharingan active for a lengthy amount of time, and he needed to learn how to dispel genjutsu without the use of his eyes, just in case.

He was getting better, but he still had a lot to improve on.

After his teammate's departure, Team 7's training went a whole new direction. Kakashi personally tutored Sasuke while Sakura wanted to focus on genjutsu. While Kakashi knew a lot of about the art of illiusion, he was ill equipped to teach her, soley because he used his lone doujutsu to do the illusions for him.

Instead, he offered her to train under Kurenai, the master of genjutsu. She eagerly accepted the offer.

That's not to say that Team 7 didn't do missions together. They did missions every other day, D-rank at first to help build the village back up to what it once was, and progressing onto C and B ranks within a few weeks time.

Their rigorous training schedules offered very little down time, and after the news of their teammate leaving for an unknown amount of time, it drove them to train even harder. Knowing their blond knucklehead, he would train and train and train until his disability wasn't a disability any longer, and would more likely than not outshine them should they slack off even a little.

At least, Sasuke thought so.

His sensei asked on more than one occasion why he wanted to train and get stronger so badly. Of course, Kakashi thought it a rhetorical question and expected the answer to be 'to kill my brother and avenge my clan'. But instead, Sasuke just shrugged and replied with his stoic tone, "because that idiot isn't going to be slacking. He's training under one of the Sannin. I have to make sure I don't fall behind".

"But what of your goals? You know, to kill a 'certain man'."

Sasuke's response was looking away and lifting his chin to stare into the sky. "I have a lifetime to do that. I need to become stronger than him, first."

Though Sasuke couldn't see it, Kakashi smiled underneath his mask.

* * *

"Oi, Gaki, we're here."

Naruto snored himself away, sitting straight and knocking his sealing supplies off the table his head was resting against with his flailing. "Ugk, ah, I'm up, I'm up," he repeated to himself, bringing his right arm up and wiping the drool off his face.

Jiraiya chuckled and patted his student's shoulder. "Gather your things and get ready. We're almost at Kiri."

"What? Already? I thought it was a Hidden Village, how can we just sail right in?"

"We're not actually going to Kiri, you moron," Jiraiya sighed, running a hand through his hair before he fell into another lecture (it seemed to be the common theme through the trip so far). "We're going to the rebellion's hideout. And no, I won't tell you where it is. You'll see soon for yourseld."

Naruto frowned. "How do you know where it is? It's supposed to be a secret, isn't it?"

"Kid, did you forget who trained you?" He could tell Naruto thought for a moment before a light went off in his head. "That's right, kid. 'Sharky' told me before he left Konoha. They should be waiting for us."

"Well then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"Pack your shit up, dumbass!" Naruto screamed and began to scramble to seal everything away. Jiraiya only muttered obscenities under his breath before calling out to him, "and next time if you almost forget your supplies, I'm just going to watch it happen and enjoy watching you struggle."

"Jerk!"

"Brat!"

The rest of the voyage ended in silence, both parties annoyed with the other.

And boy, did Naruto hate the silence.

It mingled with the calming sound of ocean waves clashing against the boat, gently rocking the ship in a lull that made both his mind and body relax. It allowed him to reflect, something he found himself doing lately. Some reflections were of his own self, but most of the time it was on other people.

His thoughts went to his friends back in Konoha. He felt guilty leaving without saying goodbye, but understood the reasoning behind it. His whole life was revolved around secrecy, and he was starting to hate it. He hated it so much.

He wanted to spill out his jinchuuriki status to his friends and loved ones, he wanted to desperately to tell them the actual story of how he got his sword. Most of all, he wanted to come clean to Sasuke about his training.

But he couldn't. He knew he couldn't. Naruto was dense, sometimes, but he knew if he had told him that Itachi was teaching him, it would break the boy.

And what's worse, is if he told Sasuke the real reason why the Uchiha clan was massacred, Sasuke would literally go insane with anger. He would blame Konoha, blame the Hokage, blame the council, and still blame his brother for destroying his clan and his life in the process for 'peace'.

As sad as it is, Naruto had to agree with him. He couldn't accept that a massacre of an entire clan was the only solution available.

If it was, were they really any better than the Bloody Mist they came to help put an end to?

Jiraiya snapped the boy out of his thoughts, breaking the silence as the ship jerked to a stop. "We're here."

They were immediately herded off the ship and onto the long, wooden docks. Mist surrounded them, but that came as no surprise to them. It was to be expected.

The mist cleared, mostly, once they were a few miles away from the port. At that moment, Jiraiya came to a halt, as did his student, and the elder turned around and smirked. "Ah, there you are."

Naruto turned around and grinned at the figure standing before him. "Sharky!"

Said man grit his teeth and resisted the urge to slap the kid upside the head. "Shut it, brat," he murmured, before gesturing for them to follow.

Despite them trying to 'keep a low profile', they kept a pretty quick pace. Naruto didn't argue; the sooner they met the resistance, the better. He wanted to finally help make a difference, and he waited long enough.

Minutes of travel turned into hours, all of which was in silence. Both of the elder ninja were quiet, and depite Naruto's brash nature, forced himself to remain silent as well. There had to be a reason for that, and he didn't want to find out why here and now. He could wait for an explanation later.

They came to another shore, this one very far away from any civilization. There were no roads and no paths for miles, only trees turning into a misty beach. Sand found itself in his clothes, something that irritated Naruto to no end. 'I fucking hate sand,' he grimaced as he felt grains filling his shoes with each step he took.

Thankfully, it wasn't long until they got to a metal door build inside the sandy terrain.

Kisame opened the door and wordlessly beckoned them to enter. Jiraiya nodded once and followed orders, and Naruto reluctantly obeyed. Kisame shut the door behind them, locking them inside with a shudder of creaking metal.

"Bet that was the longest that the brat's been quiet this whole trip, amiright?" Kisame grinned at Jiraiya's expression, obviously confirming the sharkman's theory.

Naruto growled and was about to retort, but was cut off by another voice sounding down the hall behind him. "Welcome, Konoha shinobi."

There stood a woman, gorgeous in every aspect, adorning a blue dress that accented every curve and lipstick that contrasted the dress yet made her face look absolutely irresistible. It took every ounce of Naruto not to stare with his jaw to the floor.

"Greetings, Mei-sama." Jiraiya bowed politely, and Naruto did the same.

"You must have had a long journey all the way from Fire Country," she mused lightly. Small talk. Important figures always made small talk. And judging the way Jiraiya bowed to her – he didn't bow to anyone, _they_ bowed to _him_ – he could only conclude that she was the leader of the rebellion that he's heard so much about.

And by Kami was she stunning.

"It was by all means no trouble," Jiraiya responded in kind. "This is my student, Naruto Uzumaki."

"It's, uh, an honor to meet you," Naruto managed, flustered beyond words at the spotlight his sensei just put him under. How the hell was he supposed to act? He's never had a conversation with someone politically important that wasn't Hiruzen or the old perv himself.

The auburn haired woman laughed, light and genuine, and Naruto began to curse at her. Was everything about her so damn attractive? "No need to be so nervous, Naruto Uzumaki. We are allies, or, rather, soon to be allies." Her smile sent shivers down his spine, and Naruto only nodded in response.

"What's the matter, kid, think she's gonna bite your head off? Can't believe you're afraid of her when I've been threatening to do that to you since we first met." Kisame grinned his animalistic grin, and the blond only glowered at him in response, momentarily forgetting just who was in his presence.

"Stuff it, Sushi." Oh, shit, did he just tell Kisame off? In front of the rebellion's leader? Great first impression, Naruto, he thought with a inward bitter pat on the back.

Instead of the scolding he'd expect, he found Mei laughing heartily at their antics. With smooth hands, she beckoned them forward. "Come inside, we have much to discuss."

* * *

I figure this is a good time as any to stop without the chapter being too long. Just introducing everything and whatnot. Again, please review. Reviews make me so happy, whether it be a few words or a paragraph. It let's me know people are enjoying my story, and invigorates me to continue.

Also, if you want a reference on Naruto's new coat, look up 'final fantasy Auron' on google. That's what I was aiming for. Did I do alright in the explanation? Let me know.

Getting Sasuke's personality is super hard. I'm trying to make him not as broody, but still have it in his personality. I don't know if I'm making it work correctly, but I feel like it's a close portrayal, at least.


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